Lost Perspective 3 : REPERCUSSIONS
by Bellegeste
Summary: Harry has unwittingly triggered a crisis in the wizard world. The repercussions affect not only his friends, but his family too... What is he hiding? What really happened at Snape Manor that day? Why does he agree to Luna's proposal? Will he find Sirius?
1. Retaliation

LP III: REPERCUSSIONS

**Disclaimer****: All cannon characters are the property of JKR and her publishers. No copyright infringement is intended. Extract from 'Si tu savais' by Robert Desnos: copyright his publishers.**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III** : **REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**Author's note:** 'Repercussions' is the third part of the Lost Perspective series. There are frequent references back to parts I and II, so it would really help if you read those first, especially Part II 'Snape's Confession'.

Harry's actions in Part I have repercussions that affect everybody differently; everyone also has his/her own agenda, which again affects the way they react to Harry. Personal issues are set against a wider context of national events. Setting is post OotP but not compatible with HBP or DH.

A brief recap on parts I and II:

Part I - Harry learns Snape is his father (it is a Severitus fic) and betrays him to Voldemort; Snape is severely tortured but they escape.

Part II - Harry and Snape spend a week together away from Hogwarts to thrash out their relationship. The first few days do not go smoothly.

And now for Part III. What is the fall-out from Harry's tricking of Voldemort? What happened during the rest of the week at Snape Cottage? Why is Harry being so secretive? Why did Snape leave in such a rush? Harry has had no contact with his friends since the day he lured Snape into the clutches of Voldemort…

**REPERCUSSIONS**

**CHAPTER 1 RETALIATION**

Resolutely cheerful, Molly Weasley placed a large, gently steaming glass bowl in the centre of the kitchen table, and smiled round at the assembled members of the Order.

"Freshly mulled pumpkin punch, everybody. Just what we need to warm us up on a chilly night like this."

She began to ladle the hot, peach-coloured liquid into a row of pewter goblets and pass them along. Her hand trembled as she poured, spilling a trail of shiny, pale-orange drips.

The young witch, Nymphadora Tonks, her hair unusually chic in a navy and white pin-striped bob (the smartness undermined, however, by the pistachio-green duffle-coat with flexing dragon-claw toggles), leaned across to the draining board and chucked her a dish cloth. It hit a goblet with a soggy thwack, knocking it right over: a squash-scented tide spread with alarming rapidity, seeping towards a pile of Muggle newspapers that formed a precariously stacked centrepiece on the long table.

"Sorry, all." Mopping, Molly took the blame with a forced laugh. She shot a harassed glance at Dumbledore, wondering why the old wizard did not call the meeting to order and make a start. What were they waiting for? And what was so important all of a sudden? It had to be that dreadful business with Harry. But Dumbledore had said the boy was safe. Merciful Merlin! A misunderstanding the headmaster had said. There'd be a lot less misunderstanding in the world if he'd stop playing his cards so close to his chest.

"I've just had an owl from Arthur," she continued, brightly. "He's been held up by Whirlybuns near Wandsworth Common, but he's on his way now. Oh dear, _Scourgify_!" she added with a hasty flick of her wand, as the lowest newspaper began wicking-up punch like a lapsed alcoholic.

"These weird goings-on – they'd be funny, if they weren't so serious," Tonks said, diluting the silence. "I read a corker this morning. Where was it now? Oh, yes…" She pointed her wand at the papers and called, '_Grimsby Gazette_!' A well-thumbed tabloid squeezed out from near the bottom of the paper tower, which wobbled and tottered for a second before righting itself.

" '**Fish-Bang-Wallop****!'**," Tonks read, emphasising the headline. _"'_**Grimsby fishermen aboard the fleet trawler** _Marlin Maris_**were unable to offer any explanation this morning for the explosive loss of their entire night's catch. Eyewitness reports describe the scene: 'The whole lot went up like a rocket. It were rainin' sushi.' Police are anxious to interview an unidentified deck-hand, last seen wearing purple oil-skins and an unusually pointed sou'wester…'**_**.**__"_

Tonks put down the Gazette.

"Bet there are a lot of very happy seagulls tonight on the Humber estuary." As she said this, her nose briefly mutated into a beak. But nobody laughed.

"Muggle-baiting. It's no joke," Kingsley chided.

"This one is equally blatant." Emmeline Vance spoke in a creamy, rounded voice which always sounded as though she'd been sucking truffles. She reached up and plucked the _Huntingdon Herald_ from the top of the pile.

"I'll dispense with the headline. Pure sensationalism," she pronounced, her plump wrist swivelling in a gesture of regal dismissal. Molly, still standing at the sink rinsing the dishcloth, bristled. Who did Vance think she was – the Queen? Emmeline skimmed the columns aloud: "**'…**** freak occurrence… the Rev. Fennimore Boothroyd… inexplicably deliquesced…'**" Pausing, she adjusted her focus upwards and, Molly felt, directed the next comment specifically at her."Deliquesced. That's 'liquified', if any of you were wondering.** 'The congregation, horrified at the sight of their rector dripping in gelatinous globs from the pulpit…'** I should imagine they were. And so forth, and so forth." She skimmed again, picking up at a later paragraph, " **'Police have issued warnings that a man seen in the vicinity wearing a multi-coloured trench-coat may be armed and should on no account be approached by members of the general public…'**_**.**_"

"Sounds like a load of irresponsible young thugs who can't hold their Butterbeer. Ought to have their wands revoked, no questions asked!" rasped Mad-Eye. "By the way, Arthur's coming up the path. For Merlin's sake, get the door, somebody, quickly, so the bell doesn't wake up _Her Ladyship_."

With his magical eye still checking the front door and hallway, Moody directed his beady, good eye at Dumbledore.

"You must do something about that portrait, Albus. Ghastly screeching creature. We've all had a go at getting her down but she still won't budge. Now that Black's not here to be offended, there's no need to be gentle with the old battleaxe." If Moody felt uncomfortable insulting Sirius's mother, he did not show it.

Molly might have felt a flicker of maternal solidarity, but over the past months the wretched woman's shrieks and insults had worn her patience down to a whisker. You couldn't nip to the kitchen to make a pot of tea without having to sneak through the hallway on tiptoe like a burglar. At least they were no longer obliged to live in this dreary, dark house. Coming here for meetings was bad enough. Her suggestion to use The Burrow as an alternative venue had fallen flat; by common consent the Order of the Phoenix had decided to retain 12 Grimmauld Place as their headquarters. As far as they knew, its location was still unknown to any of Voldemort's followers. In Molly's mind, Kreacher's disappearance was still a worry, but Dumbledore said the house-elf had submitted to memory modification and posed no threat. Molly still couldn't bring herself to trust Kreacher though, even if his allegiance was now, theoretically, transferred to Harry. And Harry's own behaviour had been downright odd recently, poor child. Anyway, the house's complex protective and disguising spells remained in operation. And it was empty and available. As Molly understood it, its legal ownership was something of a grey area: the Lestrange sisters were hardly likely to come forward with a claim; as far as anybody knew, Harry had as much right to the property as anyone. He had raised no objection, though he said he had no desire, personally, ever to set foot in the place again. It seemed a fitting tribute to Sirius's memory that his house should continue to serve a useful function in the name of the Order - however many unhappy memories it might evoke.

Arthur Weasley bundled into the room, bringing with him a blast of cold, October night air and the faint, but unmistakable smell of rotting vegetables. His woollen overcoat hummed like a damp dog. He stood unwinding a multi-coloured, hand-knitted scarf that was wrapped in several loops around his neck, his horn-rimmed glasses fogging in the warmth of the crowded kitchen.

"Evening one and all. Sorry about the pong. Bewitched Wheelybins. it's a job for the sanitation department, really, but they don't want a bar of it. Better wash my hands…"

He ambled to the sink and began soaping-up vigorously.

"Are we all here?" Finally Dumbledore took charge. "Remus is unfortunately unable to be with us this evening, and I have received apologies from Sturgis. He hasn't felt up to Apparating since his release from Azkaban. Hagrid is still - er - away, and Minerva is holding the educational fort for me at Hogwarts."

Molly felt the wizard's gaze slide over her as he surveyed the group: Arthur, his old friend Alastor Moody and the two Aurors, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Tonks. Daedalus Diggle, Elphias Doge and Hestia Jones were huddled in a tight cluster at the far end of the table comparing newspaper cuttings. Emmeline Vance had drawn her chair back a little to allow herself more room to recline – that woman could perch on a stick-backed kitchen seat and somehow make it appear like a throne.

Hestia Jones looked up from her clipping, noticing that the room had gone quiet and Dumbledore's attention was upon her.

"It's been utter pandemonium in Cardiff," she volunteered, her florid complexion even pinker than usual. As she spoke, her head nodded in time with the words, the springy, black, lambs-wool curls framing her face like a Welsh bonnet. "Five unrelated cases of spontaneous human combustion in the space of a week. The Muggle Fire Brigade is close to panic." The lilting timbre of her voice gave the long syllables a bardic, lyrical quality.

Dumbledore rested his elbows on the table, bony hands steepled in front of him, tapping his lips slowly and thoughtfully against pressed fingers. He looked at them all over the top of his half-moon glasses.

"Anything else to report? Anyone? Elphias, any news from the North-West?"

Elphias Doge shook his head.

"Same story. Not good. The Muggle press are referring to the outbreak of mystery illness as 'Sudden onset CJD' but that's only a label. There's no medical evidence to support it. Four reported cases so far, all in Cumbria, all within a twenty mile radius. There's already talk of an epidemic, and all that that involves - culling entire herds, livestock relocation and export bans. Beef production could be at a standstill within days. And all for nothing. It's nowt to do with the blessed cows. It's _him_. He's frying people's brains!"

"Sightings?"

"In or near the vicinity of each incident."

"Is there anything to indicate that the Muggles have made the connection?" asked Emmeline. "Between the incidents, I mean, not with He Who Must Not Be Named."

"It is only a matter of time!" Excitable at the best of times, Diggle was getting more jumpy with each passing minute.

"Let us pause to clarify the position," said Dumbledore, unflappable as ever. "What we have here is a series of extraordinary occurrences that have taken place throughout the country, all within the last ten days. Not all of them are overtly magical in origin, but they are unusual enough to arouse our suspicions, and - I think I am right in saying - those of the Ministry too. Is that not so, Kingsley?"

"Questions have been raised," Shacklebolt confirmed, his voice deep, reasonable and resonant, "but, as yet, all the so-called 'antisocial manifestations' have been attributed to pranksters. Fudge is no help. He won't budge. He's still denying the possibility that You-Know-Who might be responsible. Look at it from his point of view: it threatens the status quo; his own position is still precarious. Any further scandal… Even though he saw _him_ with his own eyes last summer, he still refuses to believe - publicly, at least - in his return. Out of sight, out of mind."

"He's not the only one who's out of his mind!" squeaked Diggle.

Ignoring him, Dumbledore scanned his team as he summarised:

"We are agreed, then, that the person responsible, directly or indirectly, for these attacks is Voldemort?"

The collective intake of breath sucked the oxygen out of the room. The candles flickered. The use of the unspeakable name unleashed doubts and anxieties hitherto held in check, and the meeting devolved into a hubbub of comment and exclamation:

"Why now, all of a sudden?"

"…total violation of the Statute of Secrecy."

"…not to mention infringement of at least nine subsections of the International Wizard Code."

"Where's it all going to end?"

"Door!" growled Moody again, unheard amidst the babble by all except Shacklebolt, who slipped silently out of the room. For a big man he could move very smoothly. Indignant mutterings swelled to fill the space left by his absence.

"What can _he_ hope to achieve by murdering defenceless Muggles?"

"…who pose no threat at all. He must be insane."

"…senseless, unprovoked attacks…"

"**Not wholly unprovoked.**"

To the impassioned group around the table, absorbed in their discussion, it seemed as though Snape had materialised out of thin air. He had not raised his voice, but his words cut through the choppy conversation like a shark's fin. Hushed, they waited for him to elaborate, but Dumbledore waded in:

"Ah, Severus. I'm glad you were able to join us after all. You have had a long day but, I hope, a productive one?"

Snape answered with the barest of nods and a slight curl of the lips, but said nothing. He took the remaining vacant chair, at the end of the kitchen nearest the door, and sat down, suppressing a sigh. Despite the heat in the kitchen, he was still wearing his greatcoat as though he was poised for a rapid exit.

"Molly, a glass of your excellent punch, I think, for Professor Snape, if you would be so kind." Dumbledore eyed the younger wizard. "Are you ready for this, Severus?"

"I am." Snape's expression betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

"Well now." Dumbledore initially addressed the Order. "In the light of recent developments, we feel it is now necessary for you to be told the full facts. Forewarned is forearmed, so they say. You are all aware of Professor Snape's recent altercation with Voldemort…"

Again the involuntary group hiss and tightening of features.

"So it's Snape we have to thank for all this." Diggle shot to his feet. His accusation shrilled through the kitchen, bouncing off metal pans and hard surfaces like a trapped, angry bluebottle.

"Not so fast, Daedalus." Dumbledore motioned his agitated colleague back down. "As I was saying… An altercation, in the course of which he had the opportunity to observe our adversary at first hand. His report, as you will hear, is illuminating and invaluable. What you are _unaware_ of is the significant role in this story played by young Harry Potter."

The silence in the kitchen was absolute. You could have heard an owl fly.

On cue, Severus took up the narrative, his voice cool and detached as though he were enumerating the ingredients for a standard Potion. Only the vein pulsing in his temple gave a hint that this was any more stressful than the daily routine of marking the class register.

"On his sixteenth birthday, on 31st July, Harry… _Potter_" - there was a fractional pause before Snape pronounced the surname - "received a letter…"

**x x x**

"The _Obligatus_, you say?" Moody's eye gleamed as though he had just taken it out and polished it. "And the _Natqah_ rite? Hah! Haven't seen a case of that for a good few years. And the kid blew your cover with You-Know-Who? Vindictive lad you've got there, Snape - he'll need watching… As a matter of interest, how would you rate his residual ability for independent thought while acting under _Obligatus_?"

Dissecting the Dark curse gave Snape a much-needed reprieve. Time and again he had redirected the subject to Voldemort's capacity for retaliatory action, only to have it twisted back towards his 'family' drama. Prurience prevailed. The members of the Order were, in spite of themselves, gripped by the personal revelations about Snape: his relationship to Harry fired their imaginations. Beetroot-haired, Tonks goggled at the sweating Potions master.

"Snape a dad. Blimey! Who'd of thought it?" she mused.

Molly Weasley was unashamedly partial in her defence of Harry.

"Of course, the poor child didn't know what he was doing," she said. "He must have been terrified. Harry can't have cast those curses himself. I know Harry; he wouldn't. He didn't, did he?" She appealed to Snape and to the general goodwill of the group; there was no way Harry – her Harry – would have been cruel without a good excuse.

"Apart from the initial _Cruciatus_, no." Snape kept his answers factual, minimal.

"But you said yourself that the circle of Death Eaters had their wands on him. What choice did the poor boy have? Oh, that poor, poor child!"

Molly was wilfully blind to the salient detail that Harry's presence at that gathering had been both voluntary and premeditated. She repeated the phrase 'That poor child' to herself at intervals, melting with maternal compassion at Harry's predicament. She had no pity to spare for Snape.

"And did you, in the course of the 'questioning' reveal to anyone your kinship to the Potter boy?" said Emmeline Vance.

"If that's your way of asking whether i cracked under torture, then no, I did not."

"We can't expect it to stay a secret for long. Walls have ears - 'Extendable' ones, sometimes," Kingsley commented, with a significant glance at the Weasleys. Molly blushed for her absent, unruly children.

"What I don't understand is why _he_ is taking it out on a load of blameless Muggles, fish, animals and so on," queried Doge. "You, Snape, are the one who's been double-crossing him for years; young Potter has always been a bugbear, and now Potter's gone and AK-ed him - you must admit he has a grievance. Why doesn't he concentrate on a more deserving target i.e. the two of you?"

That was a thorny one. Even Snape didn't have a satisfactory reply.

"One must assume that he supposes Potter's affiliation with Muggle society to be stronger than it actually is."

"That poor child! As if he didn't have enough to worry about!"

"How does Harry feel about it?"

"Was Harry hurt at all?"

Harry's welfare became the focus of attention. Snape made no attempt either to mitigate his own guilt or to solicit sympathy. He fielded their questions.

"How have the other children reacted?"

"The school will be informed in due course."

"And for the past week, Harry has been where, precisely?"

"He has been under my supervision."

Molly could contain herself no longer. She had never liked or trusted Snape. She turned on him like a cornered Occamy defending her eggs.

"_Your_ supervision! You're not fit to supervise a dead Dung-Beetle! You have made that child's life a misery ever since he started at that school, and now you expect us to believe this… nonsense about him trying to kill you - really! I can't say that I blame him! And then you cart him off to the country for a week of… well, I dread to think what! And as for being his father… If this is some sort of a joke then it's cruel. Very cruel. You've got some nerve! Pretending to be a parent is no way to atone for a lifetime of depravity. Do you want to ruin the boy's life? Over my dead body! You might as well condemn him to penal servitude. He'd be happier in Azkaban!"

"Calm yourself, Molly," soothed Dumbledore.

"I most certainly will **not** calm myself!" she shouted. "In fact, I'm sorry everybody, but I can't stay…" She faced the others, red-cheeked and fuming. Then, salvaging her dignity, "I'm afraid I have left some knitting on the go… Must dash, you know. The sleeves will all be making themselves far too long… Goodnight."

Seizing her capacious shoulder-bag in one hand and the lapel of her husband's jacket in the other, she marched to the door, with Arthur stumbling after her remonstrating mildly. Her indignant voice still sounded in the hallway, where Arthur had stalled their exit while he wound himself into his scarf.

"Oh, do come on! I refuse to spend another minute in the same room as that appalling man!"

The front door slammed, much to the fury of Sirius's mother.

The Weasleys' departure broke up the meeting. One by one the others found excuses for leaving, even Tonks who had, for the last hour, been staring avidly at Snape with new eyes, as though he had metamorphosed into a many-headed but strangely exciting Hydra. Kingsley Shacklebolt paused on his way out to give Snape a comradely clap on the back.

"Tough call, man."

Moody's parting words to Dumbledore were less comforting.

"This will escalate, Albus," he warned gruffly, before stumping off into the night.

**x x x**

"That went rather well, don't you think?" Dumbledore pronounced with heavy irony, lingering on the threshold as the clunk of Moody's staff on the path dwindled until it was finally swallowed by the sounds of the city.

A sucking rush of wind drew the door closed with a bang and the curtained portrait in the hall instantly leaped to the offensive:

"Who's there?" it screamed in outrage. "I can see you, whoever you are! Leave my house this instant! Burglars! Intruders! Villainous scum!" The tirade would have continued, getting increasingly voluble and abusive with each shriek, had not Dumbledore intervened.

"_Toffocollus_!" A jet of sticky caramel arced in a glutinous, golden string from the tip of his wand. Behind the curtain, the screeching was replaced by a choking, slurping sound.

"Rather a pleasant form of punishment, in my opinion," said the old wizard, sucking a toffee drip. "That should keep her quiet for an hour or so. Come, Severus, let us adjourn to the parlour; the ambience in the kitchen is a little too highly-charged for my taste…"

Without waiting for Snape's reply, he led the way across the hall and through into the cheerless sitting room which, since Kreacher's defection and without Molly's house-keeping skills, was already reverting to its former state of dereliction and neglect.

Another wave of the masterful wand and a diaphanous shroud of dust peeled itself away from every horizontal surface in a thin, grey, continuous sheet. This began to fold itself, corner to corner, envelope-fashion, growing smaller and more compact with each fold until it was the size of a large garden snail. Dumbledore picked it up with distaste and threw it into the fireplace.

"_Incendio_!" Flames leaped. The headmaster stretched his fingers out to the warmth, stiff joints cracking. "I think we could both do with a drop of something stronger than Pumpkin Punch. I keep a secret supply of some very fine brandy here somewhere, for occasions just such as this."

From the back of a sideboard Dumbledore produced a tall, cylindrical tin. It bore a picture of a kilted, dancing Scotsman and the name _MacGreggor's Magnificent Mintoes_. Prising off the lid, he extracted a squat bottle.

"I'm always afraid that if I keep it in the kitchen it will end up in some of Molly's cooking. Which would be a pity, a great pity…" he said, making conversation as he effortlessly transfigured a couple of nondescript paper beakers into two crystal brandy glasses. Settling himself before the now blazing fire, he relaxed back into his chair and contemplated his shell-shocked companion.

"Severus, it was inevitable that feelings would run a little heated. It is an emotive subject. Take no notice of Molly. She has no idea how much you have done for Harry." Dumbledore said, hoping to offer some form of consolation.

All this time Snape had not spoken. Rigid with tension, he perched on the chair's rim, hunched forwards, elbows resting on open knees, the brandy balloon cupped between both hands. Slowly swirling the glass, he stared morosely at the smooth, rolling, amber cognac. His greatcoat had been shed in the kitchen in the first flush of confessional embarrassment, and later, as he countered successive volleys of relentless questions, his jacket too. Now, with his top button undone and his sleeves pushed back, his face grey with exhaustion, he looked like a man on the edge. Dumbledore could tell that however rigorous the Aurors' debriefing Severus had endured earlier in the day, it had been a feather-fight compared to the uncompromising interrogation he had just received from his colleagues in the Order.

"Severus, we need to discuss the outcome of your 'interview' with the Ministry this morning," reminded Dumbledore gently.

Snape was gazing fixedly into the brandy glass, as if scrying his future from the surface of the sheeny liquid, though he would have scoffed at the very idea. He dragged his gaze up and, with a sudden, brusque gesture, raised the glass and downed the contents at one go.

"The Weasley woman may be right," he muttered.

"She is **not** right. She is ignoring the facts and letting emotion cloud her judgement," said Dumbledore. He was annoyed with Molly for the histrionic outburst which had brought the meeting of the Order to a premature close. Despite all his years' experience he failed to comprehend how a level-headed, sensible woman like Molly Weasley could be so irrational; how her sensibilities could be so fine-tuned in respect to Harry's needs and so indifferent to those of Severus.

It occurred to Dumbledore that the week of enforced companionship at Snape Cottage might not have been an unqualified success. As yet he had had no opportunity to talk about it with the Potions master.

"How was your week with Harry?" he asked.

"Fine." Snape was not forthcoming.

"You kept him usefully occupied then? Has the break done him good?" Dumbledore knew the question might be misconstrued, but he felt it incumbent upon him to ask. Molly's suspicions might, after all, be justified. As a parent, Snape was an unknown quantity. "Is he well?"

"Oh indeed. His entrails are reducing in a cauldron of antimonium acid, even as we speak. I fed him on Monkshood, flayed him regularly with Oleander stems and seeded his intestines with Fasciola flukes as part of an investigation into parasitic infestation. Well, that _**is**_ what everyone expects to hear, is it not?" Snape answered bitterly, rising from the chair and beginning to pace the room.

Dumbledore let that pass without comment.

"Severus, pour yourself another drink, and come and sit down. You're not on trial here. I merely wished to know whether Harry had benefited from his holiday."

"Harry has been acquainted with the immediate history of the Snape family. In the course of the week he has proved himself to be disobedient and argumentative; he has also shown resourcefulness and consideration. He has displayed a hitherto latent talent for Potion-making, and remarkable ability in the extraction of Viper venom. We …"

Snape stopped speaking, censoring his already stark account of the weeks' activities. Noting his confusion, Dumbledore found himself wondering exactly what memories the Potions master was so reluctant to share.

"It sounds as though you have written the boy's end of term report," he said, his smile twitching into his silvery beard and whiskers. "Can I take it that you have reconciled your… differences?"

"Harry no longer wishes to transfer to Beauxbatons. He is Floo-ing back to Hogwarts tonight to resume his studies." Snape confined his answer to practicalities. His gaze slid to the large casement clock at the far end of the room. "He should be there by now."

"And how are **you**, Severus?"

"I'm fine."

That's what you said when they were carrying you semi-conscious into the hospital wing, thought Dumbledore, despairing of him.

**x x x**

Dumbledore had not been idle during the week that Snape and Harry had been at the cottage.

Harry's repeated contravention of the Apparition Act had forced the Ministry into action.. During those first few days after the escape from the cellar, with Harry fogbound with guilt and depression, numerous Ministry owls were found hooting mournfully around Hogwarts, perplexed by Harry's blank refusal to accept, unfasten or read the official scroll summonses. Dumbledore was obliged to intervene.

"You know I would have spared you all this, if I could - the Aurors and the Order," Dumbledore said, leaning forward and failing to catch the younger man's eye. "But I am rather running out of strings to pull."

Snape shrugged.

"You've done enough. Harry'd be up in court again if it weren't for you. And with his history…" He shook his head as though the weight of his new parental responsibilities were only just beginning to dawn on him. Dumbledore chuckled.

"Quite so. Underage Apparition on top of everything else. The Spell Scrutineers are already having a field day with his wand. Regretfully, I had to let them have it unmodified."

"It would have been suspicious not to." Snape nodded. "When will he get it back?"

"That, I fear, is a question for the Aurors. You might have asked them this morning."

"I had other things on my mind," Snape retorted, showing a flash of spirit. "It's not often they get their hands on a tame Death Eater. They were determined to get their money's worth." He sank back into the chair with a guarded look that Dumbledore had seen too often before.

"It was one of my stipulations: that if you volunteered yourself for interrogation in place of Harry, you would be well treated."

"Define 'well'." Snape's gaze held more than a hint of defiance. He shifted uncomfortably, leaving Dumbledore with the impression that he might well have been physically as well as mentally bruised by the morning's session. "I have to assume it was a coincidence that Kingsley and Tonks were both out of the office today."

"As far as I know their association with the Order is not common knowledge." Dumbledore ran his fingers through his beard in perplexity. Was this another leak? Rumours of Harry's run-in with Voldemort were already leaking to the wizard world and soon the news of Snape's fatherhood would be rife. "They accepted your right to act on Harry's behalf?"

"Pomfrey's medical evidence was incontrovertible."

Unaware of the significance of the document before her, the counter clerk in the Department for the Registration of Wizard Births, Marriages and Deaths, had passed it on the nod and, with bored indifference, had also stamped Harry's 'Age of Attainment' form. With this rite of passage completed, Harry would now have been entitled to present his own defence - irrespective of Snape's wishes. Snape and Dumbledore had decided that it was politic not to tell him.

"And they agreed to a non-custodial sentence. However did you manage to achieve that?"

"Plea bargaining," Snape said, without elaborating. "That and the fact that this case is legally unprecedented, and they were floundering around like headless hippogriffs. The combination of being summoned by the Dark Lord while under the influence of the _Obligatus_, cast by a third party, compromised their case for infraction of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. I invoked the provision for the 'use of magic in life threatening situations' and, given that the curses were cast in self-defence…"

"Self-defence?" Dumbledore challenged the word. "Severus, you do realise you are committing perjury for that boy? If you are ever required to give evidence under Veritaserum…"

"I will lie. I have broken the serum before, and I can do it again. Or arm myself with an antidote," Snape said, now meeting Dumbledore's eyes without flinching. He had not survived so long as a Death Eater by being timid. "In any case, the Dark Lord's spell signature identifies him as the primary offender. That part of the story is verifiable."

Frowning, Snape fell silent, and began absently twisting the thick stem of the brandy glass between his fingers. His expression had hardened. Dumbledore could see him mentally reliving the horror of those vile spells that contaminated Harry's wand.

"Plea bargaining?" Dumbledore queried.

Snape snapped out of it.

"In return for certain information concerning the Dark Lord, they will allow Harry to remain at Hogwarts under our joint jurisdiction. When his wand is returned, it is to be used for educational purposes only. This is all conditional on him agreeing to undergo certain courses of corrective treatment…"

**END OF CHAPTER 1. Next chapter: HARDLY A HERO'S WELCOME. Harry gets back to Hogwarts. Why won't he tell his friends what happened during that week with Snape? Is he hiding something?**

21


	2. Hardly a Hero's Welcome

**Author's note: I don't intend to start replying to reviews individually at the beginning of chapters ('cos that always tends to get out of hand), but I do want to thank my 'regulars' (Silverthreads, Zachiliam, Ezmerelda...) and those of you who e-mail me direct (you know who you are...). I can't tell you how much it means to me when you are all so supportive. I'm really shy about sharing my writing, and I hope this story lives up to your impossibly high expectations. Thanks guys.**

Chapter 2 recaps a bit - it seemed important to make it clear at the beginning who knew what, otherwise their different reactions as the story develops would be meaningless. But things do branch out later on, I promise.

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III: REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 2: HARDLY A HERO'S WELCOME**

"Wotcha mate! Beamed back from your 'away mission' then? Crikey, you don't look like you've been tortured - more like you've had a week on Risa!"

Ron was standing at the end of Harry's four-poster, wearing his new purple pyjamas that already seemed several inches too short in the leg, and grinning widely. He had flung aside the bed's curtains, surprised to find them drawn, and had been even more surprised to see Harry, curled up asleep under the eiderdown, as if he had never been away.

"Morning, Ron." Out of habit, Harry reached for his glasses and poked them onto his nose, only to find Ron's cheery face slipping _out_ of focus. He could see better without them. "It's good to be back. You're still on another planet, then? Is there something the matter?" Harry tried to keep his voice steady.

The look on Ron's face was one of mingled concern, curiosity and anticlimax, as though in some strange way he had been cheated.

"You look OK to me," Ron said, grabbing the covers and yanking hard so that Harry was left exposed and chilly on the bare sheets. Ron's disappointed expression reminded Harry of Christmas, when he had ripped into an intriguingly wrapped parcel, only to find another of Mrs Weasley's hand-knitted jumpers.

"But Dumbledore told us you'd been horribly mutilated beyond all recognition, and that you were confined to sick-bay for genetonic replication and DNA re-sequencing," said Ron, still talking in space-speak.

"In English, Ron." Harry was trying to be patient.

"Well, he said you and Snape had been hurt, and that you had been sent somewhere to get better." The truth was clearly not half so appealing.

By this time Dean and Seamus had also woken up and they too appeared, rumpled and crusty-eyed, at the foot of Harry's bed.

"That's a Galleon you'll be owing me then, Thomas," Seamus pronounced, after counting Harry's limbs and finding them present and intact. Ron's graphic fabrication explaining Harry's absence was obviously the accepted version. What odds, he wondered, had they been offering, for him returning with a leg, eye or finger missing?

After the Spartan solitude of his room at Snape Cottage, the boisterous camaraderie of the Gryffindor dorm was comforting. A week ago Harry had not felt resilient enough to face his friends at all, but over the past seven days he had done a lot of thinking and re-evaluating, and he felt stronger, more secure in himself, prepared even to flex the muscles of his new identity.

The others were still examining him quizzically - it was as though the parts of his body were objects on a tray in a game of human anatomical Pelmanism, and the cloth had just been whisked away.

"Definitely somethin' diff'rent... about the hair, wouldn't ya say?" Seamus's fingers were twitching, dying to give a quick, experimental tug at Harry's fringe. "And the nose - I mean, it always was gross, but now..."

Harry had to think quickly. While he had been with Snape he hadn't had to consider his appearance.

"C'mon guys, what is this? What do you expect? I've just been brutally dismembered, right? And - what was it, Ron? - 'biogenically regenerated'! You can't expect me to look identical. So my hair's gone a bit floppy - it's the shock. It'll probably have turned completely white by tomorrow. And my nose got broken, OK? They had to reset it. You wouldn't exactly be looking your best if you'd had to spend a whole week on your own with Snape."

That won him the sympathy vote.

As far as the truth went, Harry was steering a middle course between the cosy 'Snape-is-my-father - he'll save me from big, bad Voldemort' scenario which he had fed to Hermione, and the more accurate, harsher story that Draco knew - the one that, however, omitted to mention the Snape family connection. So long as Malfoy and Hermione never got together to compare notes - and that was hardly likely - Harry reckoned he might just get away with it. In his discussions with Snape they had somehow always managed to skirt round the issue - it was tacitly acknowledged that, sooner or later, they would go public, but neither of them wanted to take the final plunge. Did that make two things on which they actually agreed?

For one excruciating moment, as he walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, Harry imagined the students were going to give him a standing ovation. There was an awful scraping sound of benches being pushed back, as dozens of bodies squirmed round in their seats to get a glimpse of him making his way to the Gryffindor table. But then he caught the muttered comments as he passed by:

"I told you so!"

"You promised to double it if he wasn't limping..."

"Not even a tooth missing!"

"Not a bruise in sight!"

_No, _thought Harry to himself_, the bruises are all out of sight, under my robes_. His ribs were still very tender, and the sore welts on his thighs chafed against his trousers with every step. _It was my own stupid fault, _he reflected_. I should never have gone to the Manor. I shouldn't have disobeyed him._

If his classmates had also been running a Tote on his state of health, they were more tactful about concealing it. They crowded round, genuinely pleased to see him. Harry wished they wouldn't press quite so close, and once or twice he found himself wincing as someone patted him on the back a bit too heartily for comfort. He found himself sitting squashed between Hermione and Ginny, with Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville leaning across the table and the rest of the Gryffindors concertinaed into less than half the usual space as they all craned to hear what he was saying.

"You mean you've been living in the 'Snake-pit' with the greasy git for a whole week - and you're still alive?" Ron was thunder-struck. "Or has he really killed you off and reconstructed a replacement with Polyjuice Potion?" He jabbed Harry's arm, as though that might give some indication of authenticity.

"Ow! That hurt!" exclaimed Harry. It did; there was another huge bruise on his shoulder. "You'll just have to wait an hour for it to wear off, and see if I turn back into Quig."

"Into who?"

Harry had deliberated for a long time over what details of Snape's private life it would be acceptable to disclose. Surely it couldn't hurt to mention that he had a house elf? As he had suspected she would, Hermione positively warbled with approval when he described how Snape employed the elf in spite of his infirmities and idiosyncratic cuisine. She was equally charmed by the idea of Snape using sign language to communicate with the deaf elf; her formerly negative opinion of the Potions master seemed to have taken a radical U-turn.

Harry tried to laugh off the part about Voldemort and the cellar, emphasising the 'gallant Harry to the rescue' angle - anything else would be too painful to discuss heroically in front of his adoring audience. Even so, Hermione's eyes had misted at his description of Snape's injuries.

"Is he alright? Did you look after him?" she whispered, her voice rather too syrupy for Harry's liking. Whatever sickly notion she was entertaining of dramatic, father-son 'bonding' sessions needed to be firmly scotched. He 'humphed' in a non-committal way.

"Because he looks like death-warmed-up this morning," she continued.

They both turned their attention to top table, where Professors Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall were locked in conversation, their expressions earnest. McGonagall in particular looked shocked; they could see her square-ish spectacles lifting slightly off the bridge of her nose every time she raised her eyebrows. At one point she uttered a sharp gasp of surprise, and Harry saw Snape flick his hair back with a crisp toss of his head, an angry gesture which Harry had come to recognise only too well. Now that Hermione mentioned it, Harry noticed that his father did look a lot worse than when he had seen him last.

He was feeling rather ticked-off with Snape. On what would have been their final day together at Snape Cottage, Harry had come down to find a short note telling him that Snape was otherwise engaged and with instructions to Floo back to Hogwarts alone that evening. It wasn't that Harry minded being on his own; it was just that he had imagined things differently...

Hermione was still harping on about Snape with, it seemed to Harry, quite unnecessary solicitude.

"He was lucky there was no long-term spell damage. When you think of how Lockhart ended up - and that was only one back-firing wand. I read somewhere that a single Cruciatus is the equivalent of being struck by lightning - it can cause all sorts of neurological problems," she said seriously.

"Cascade failure in the neural net! Feedback overload in the positronic matrix!" Ron chipped-in, not solicitous at all.

Hermione glared at him. For days Ron had been driving her to distraction, spreading his insensitive rumours that Snape and Harry would return in a mangled pulp - crippled, bonkers, or both. It had certainly swayed the betting in his favour: he had staked his entire allowance on Harry's escaping unscathed. And the space routine, she sniffed superciliously, had worn thinner than Ron's socks.

"I'm warning you, Ron!" Then she picked-up her theme, "Was he OK last week?"

Harry struggled with the definition of 'OK', chasing it around his plate like a piece of gristle. What, in relation to Snape, constituted 'OK'?

"He was a bit fraught at first..." he ventured.

"Emotion chip malfunction!"

"Right! That's it! I've had enough!" Hermione cracked. "You'll thank me for this one day, Ron." She whipped out her wand and shot it at Ron before he had a chance to run or duck or defend himself. "_HICCOBUBBLUS!"_

A froth of spangly, pink powder fizzed out of the wand and swirled around Ron's head in a perfumed, pastel cloud. The air was sickly-sweet with the smell of bubblegum. Everyone stared at Ron expectantly. Apart from a fine, rosy dusting around his nostrils, he appeared to have suffered no ill-effects whatsoever. He gave a scathing grunt.

"Huh! Damp squib!"

"Don't let Filch hear you say that," muttered Harry.

"Nice try, Hermione. Oooh, I'm so scared! Is that the best you can do? That's a bit fluffy for you, isn't it? Not up to your usual standard!"

"You'll see," she said, ominously complacent.

The Gryffindor crowd thinned rapidly, having more respect for the pink froth spell than Ron - did they know something he didn't? - and not wishing to chance their luck. Ron himself hung back, reluctant to leave Harry, but keeping well out of Hermione's line of fire. Ginny, in a show of Weasley loyalty, stayed with him, but left shortly to join her latest crush, Terry Boot, who was with Luna Lovegood, Padma Patil and a gang of Ravenclaws, punctually on their way to their first lesson. Soon only the three friends were left at the long table.

"So now you can tell us what really happened," Hermione said.

Harry wanted to check what had been said in his absence before he committed himself to any explanations. '_Can't stroke a Hippogriff without bowing first. It pays to be prepared and cautious'_ he told himself, then recoiled as he remembered Snape saying almost exactly the same thing. '_I'm even beginning to think like him'_. It was not a happy thought.

"Why don't you tell me what's been going on here," he suggested. Hermione obliged.

"We were all frantic with worry. First there was Malfoy saying that you'd been kidnapped by You-Know-Who. We didn't know whether to believe him or not - it might have been some nasty Slytherin scam. But then Professor Snape disappeared too - he tried to rescue you, didn't he Harry ? I just knew he would! See, I've always said Dumbledore was right to trust him. Even before he knew he..."

Harry rolled his eyes towards Ron and shook his head imperceptibly. Hermione understood at once. As she was speaking, Harry felt a sharp, stinging pain and a blow, as though he had taken a direct Bludger to the head. A crusty bread roll, thrown with considerable accuracy and force, had hit him on the left ear. He looked up in time to catch Malfoy's eyes as the Slytherin tilted his blond head in Snape's direction and sliced his finger across his throat in a significant gesture.

Hermione was still talking.

"And then when neither of you came back, everyone started to panic. Dumbledore made an announcement in Hall and said that if anyone had any information we should speak to him. So I went, but I didn't know how much I should tell him. I didn't let on about - you know." Ron was giving her a puzzled look. She rushed on,

"Dumbledore questioned Malfoy for ages. I think he thought he knew more than he was saying. I can see why he might think that - Malfoy didn't seem the slightest bit concerned about you. And I thought you two were friends. Some friend he turned out to be!"

Harry nodded, chewing, as he tried to catch up on his breakfast while someone else was doing the talking. The mouthful of toast lodged in his throat like a dung-bomb as he noticed his father rising abruptly, leaving High Table and bearing down upon him. Harry swallowed dryly, his throat muscles contracting like a python digesting an entire antelope.

"Potter. My office at break. Don't be late." Snape's voice was smooth and impersonal. Then he was gone, striding away down the Hall without a backward glance.

"Hey! Did you see that?" Ron exclaimed hotly, hugely indignant on Harry's behalf. "Don't stand for it, Harry! That's assault! Sue him. You know your rights! Get him dismissed for abuse! He put his hand on your arm!"

"Did he? No, he didn't. I don't think he did," said Harry, deliberately neutral, his shoulder still tingling from the momentary pressure of Snape's touch...

**END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: DIVIDED LOYALTIES. Snape, Harry and Lupin are all unhappy, for various reasons... Has Lupin discovered Harry's secret?**

10


	3. Divided Loyalties

**Author's note:  To answer a couple of things: I felt that Ron's 'technobabble' might start wearing a bit thin, especially for non ST:TNG fans... As for Harry's injuries, well, who knows what Snape is capable of? You'll have to wait and see...**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III :REPERCUSSIONS **

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 3DIVIDED LOYALTIES**

"Forget it!"

The door slammed so violently that the dungeon reverberated, shock waves ricocheting round the solid walls like Snitches in a shoebox; the vibration caused the very lichen to shudder and gather in militant huddles to protest, circular green clots on the surface of the ancient stone.

Professor Dumbledore stroked his long, silvery beard.

"Perhaps a soupçon more - er - _diplomacy_, might have been in order there, Severus," he commented.

"Diplomacy! Harry is no longer a child; I refuse to treat him as such. I am not here to _negotiate_ with him. The Ministry's stipulations are perfectly clear. I merely presented him with the facts. How was I supposed to know that he would explode like a wild Erumpent in 'must'?"

"He is a teenager, Severus. I find a drop of jocularity, a dash of forgetfulness and an inexhaustible supply of lemon Fizz-bees is a fairly foolproof recipe for dealing with that age group. Allows them to feel intellectually superior while replenishing their blood sugar. In the past, in the case of Harry, I have also found it handy to have a readily accessible stock of breakable objects..."

Snape snorted. He had no intention of sacrificing his dignity or his possessions to one of Harry's temper tantrums.

"You can see what I have to put up with. The boy is out of control. His disobedience tests my patience to the absolute limit. The Ministry's treatment is long overdue."

A batch of floating eyeballs, marinating in an oily, gamboge solution, made the mistake of winking at him. He lasered them with an acute, acid glare until the noxious, yellow ooze began to bubble and, one by one, the eyeballs poached, turning opaquely grey and sinking blindly into the murky sediment at the bottom of the jar.

"Forgive an old man's impertinence, Severus, but may I ask if Harry behaved like this all last week? I was under the impression that the two of you had made some progress. It is evident to me that you are taking your new responsibility seriously, but perhaps Harry is still in some doubt... You have, at least, made an effort to speak to the boy?"

"Of course I have!" Snape snapped. "We spoke at some length. Or rather," he corrected himself, a stickler for accuracy, "**_I_** spoke at length. In fact, I think I said too much. I was indiscreet." He castigated himself. "I was tired; I was unwell - I confided more than I should have," he admitted.

He began rearranging the bottles on the already scrupulously tidy shelf, avoiding the Headmaster's kindly gaze.

"I see." Dumbledore could picture the scene: Snape, for whatever reason, had let down his drawbridge for Harry to cross, and was now regretting it and over-compensating - cranking the bridge back up again, preparing the boiling oil... No wonder Harry felt angry and rejected.

"You don't think you might try making yourself a little more - er - _accessible_, Severus? ...being a trifle more _demonstrative_? ...try letting him know how you _feel_?"

The cohorts of glass bottles were now standing to attention with military precision. Snape's shoulders stiffened slightly, but he gave no other indication of having heard.

Overnight there had been two more examples of spontaneous human combustion, no longer confined to the South Wales region, as well as several untoward accidents amongst the Muggle population. The fall-out from the anti-Muggle atrocities was already dropping its sinister ash on Hogwarts: two pupils from Muggle families had been withdrawn from the school. More would inevitably follow.

"I do not believe the Dark Lord to be strictly rational," Snape said, his attention once more openly engaged now that the subject was not Harry. "During our 'encounter' he displayed distinct signs of megalomania. He was behaving like a caricature of himself. And that was before Harry's use of the Killing Curse. His powers were already depleted..."

"Why do you say that?" Estimating the strength of the opposition could be crucial.

"Had they not been, I should be dead," Snape said bluntly. "The _Avada Kadavra _will have further compromised his abilities. Though I do not think Harry was sufficiently focussed at the time to have produced a curse powerful enough to be lethal against a wizard of the calibre of the Dark Lord. It is possible, though," he mused. "I was hardly in a position to judge."

Dumbledore mulled this over, wishing, as he did so, that his Potions master would speak in shorter sentences. But Severus had always been prolix: even when he was a student his meticulously researched essays had been a verbose nightmare to read.

"We are assuming that the Death Eaters are carrying out the attacks in accordance with Voldemort's instructions. What's your view on this, Severus? Why would they be confining themselves to such petty crimes?" asked Dumbledore. "Not, of course, that I consider any Muggle death to be 'petty', but, surely, he could do so much worse..."

Snape sifted his thoughts carefully before answering, leaving his prejudices trapped in the fine mesh:  
"Three possible explanations: first, the Dark Lord might be deranged - the indiscriminate, apparently pointless nature of the killings would lend credence to this view. Or, if we accord him a residual vestige of reason, we should not underestimate the extent to which he relishes his supremacy. He would resent any manifestation of abilities greater than those he himself currently possesses. The Death Eaters will be showing deliberate restraint – for the time-being. Thirdly, these incidents may be merely a teaser, a warning..."

Suddenly he became aware of the time. Break had finished five minutes ago.

"You must excuse me, Headmaster. I have to teach the third years: 'Pimple, Pox and Pustule' Potion. Makes the vapid creatures even more repulsive than they already are, until they master the antidote."

Snape glided out of the damp dungeon. Dumbledore was left standing alone, careworn and, he realised as he wrapped his beard twice round his neck, tucking the ends into his cloak-collar, extremely cold.

"At ease," he murmured to the saluting glass bottles as he exited the room.

x x x x x

Harry just kept on walking. Up the steps away from the dungeons, along the gloomy corridor, out through a service door into the cloistered courtyard, through the archway, down the cobbled path, across the grass, onto the track, towards the Forbidden Forest... ..he kept walking. His fists were clenched tightly, balled in his cloak pockets; his breathing a series of angry, white puffs, that matched time with his ferocious stride. He could hear a voice behind him calling his name; he quickened his pace. He heard running footsteps coming closer, catching up with him.

"Harry? Harry, stop! Harry, wait!" That was not Snape's voice. Harry stopped and turned, almost straight into the arms of Remus Lupin, flushed and panting from the effort of chasing him up the hill. The werewolf looked even more scraggy than usual: his clothes, heavily patched and darned at the best of times, bore a number of recent rents, scuffs and snags; his lined face was blotched with mangy tufts of greyish fur, his hair a mass of shaggy, sandy-coloured knots ; his gait, as he walked beside Harry, was round-shouldered and stooped.

"Sorry about this, Harry," Remus apologised. "It's been a 'difficult' weekend. You know. I'm pretty much clear of it now, but I shouldn't really be out and about yet. Just had to get some fresh air after being stuck inside for two whole days. Still, it's nothing you haven't seen before. Hope I didn't startle you. Thought you were running away from me for a while back there, old boy! Sorry I couldn't be there to welcome you back. How are you doing?"

He put his arm round Harry's shoulder in brotherly affection. The weight made Harry's bruises twinge, but it was a price worth paying. _'It's ironic,' _he thought, _'it's because Snape was busy brewing Lupin's 'Wolfsbane' potion, that I went exploring the Manor on my own in the first place...'_

"Shall we go in?" suggested Lupin, shivering. "I always forget how cold it's going to be."

They clambered back across the rough ground towards the castle, content with each other's company, but saying little. Memories of the break-time meeting recurred and rebounded in time with Harry's footfalls on the springy heather. He was bouncing on a barbed-wire trampoline - with every step he left behind a gouge of flesh, but he could not climb off it. He could not put the meeting out of his mind.

"Something bothering you, Harry? Let's go to my study, get the tea going - don't laugh; you know me and my tea! – and we can have a chat. Or should you be in lessons? Oh, never mind; you've missed so many, another couple won't make much difference."

Harry reflected that their last chat had ended in harsh recriminations and, since then, he had been the cause of a great deal of trouble to the staff, Lupin included. But Remus had not alluded to it once. Nor had he given him a hard time about Snape. He really was the most easy-going, forgiving, kind-hearted man.

"...so I'd thought, that as it was our last day, that we'd have one last try at sorting things out, that maybe we'd 've done something, sort of, together. I dunno. Nothing special, just... Anyway, when I woke up, there was this note saying he'd be gone all day..."

Once Harry unscrewed the lid, the grievances that he had been shaking up all week started to gush out in an unstoppable foam. Even when the slighter niggles had settled, the events of the morning remained, a thick, creamy head of annoyance at the top of the tankard.

"...and then when he told me to see him in his office at break, I, kind of, thought we were going to talk about it. That he might explain or apologise. Well, no, not apologise - " Harry couldn't imagine Snape ever apologising to anyone about anything, "...but when I arrived, Dumbledore was there too..."

"_Professor_ Dumbledore."

"Yeah, whatever. And they were going on about all this crap from the Ministry. For starters, I've been banned from playing Quidditch..."

"Not a permanent ban, surely?" Lupin was sympathetic.

"They said they'd review it next term after my behaviour had 'undergone reassessment'. They said 'withdrawal of privileges' was the only punishment that seemed to have any impact. Don't suppose I'll be allowed to go to Hogsmeade at Halloween, either.

"And my wand - I'm only supposed to use that in lessons 'for educational purposes'. The Ministry letter said something about the teacher issuing me with my wand at the 'commencement of each study period', but Dumb - Professor Dumbledore said he was prepared to trust me on this one..."

Lupin grinned at this; he clearly thought Dumbledore ingenuously over-optimistic about Harry's self-control where magic was concerned.

"...and then there's all this sodding garbage about 'corrective therapy'. _'Bereavement Counselling' _and_ 'Anger Management' _- I ask you! Remus - do I _look_ as though I need therapy? That's Muggle stuff! Snape's getting to sound like my bogging Uncle Vernon! He'll be signing me up for St. Brutus' next! What a load of cobblers! There must be some potion that would do the same thing. Hasn't the Ministry got better things to do? But Snape seems to think..."

"_Professor_ Snape," murmured Remus, thinking that a spot of 'Anger Management' might not be such a bad idea.

"_Professor_ Snape seems to think I should be grateful to him for arranging it. He says I've got to go ahead with it, so I suppose I don't have much choice..."

Lupin was a good listener. Apart from correcting the Professors' titles, which seemed to be a reflex response instilled into all members of staff the second they signed their Hogwarts' contract, he had not tried to interrupt Harry's narrative. He sat with his feet pulled up onto the chair seat, hugging his knees - Harry had once tried to visualise Snape sitting in a position like that, and his brain had crashed, unable to process the image - sipping his tea and observing Harry thoughtfully.

"Is this 'treatment' connected in some way with your Occlumency?" he asked.

Harry shook his head.

"Then there's something I'm missing here, Harry, old man," Remus said, confused. "I should have thought Dumbledore would have had the final say about anything that affects his students' welfare. Why should it be up to Snape to make the decision?"

"Well, he _is_ my father," Harry pointed out, thinking Remus a bit slow on the uptake, that his verbal reasoning might still be a bit _wolfy_.

Lupin spluttered into his tea with a very doggy snort indeed, then leapt up with a yelp as a slosh of scalding liquid slopped down onto his crotch. Harry couldn't help smiling at the sight of him bent double, jigging in discomfort, pulling out a handkerchief and not knowing whether to wipe the tears of pain smarting from his eyes, or mop the brown rivulets of tea trickling down his face from his flaring nostrils.

"Oh hell, Remus. I'm sorry. I thought you knew. Dumbledore said he had informed all the members of the Order."

Lupin, who had almost stopped choking, gasped out,

"They called a special meeting at Grimmauld Place yesterday - but, obviously, I wasn't able to go. Snape would have been there, of course - that's probably why he had to leave you on your own - and, from what you've said, it sounds as though he spent the rest of the day at the Ministry. Gosh, what wouldn't I have given to be a Doxy in the curtain at that meeting! So, Snape is your father, is he? That puts the Dugbog in the Mandrakes! And you're fine with this, are you Harry? Everybody's fine with this? Everything's just fine and dandy! Good, good. Severus Snape is your father, and everybody's _happy_ about it? Harry, for Merlin's sake, **_WHAT IS GOING ON_**?"

He slumped into the tatty leather Oxford, and put his head in his hands, running his fingers distractedly through his unkempt hair, dragging at the knots. A low, sobbing growl rumbled in his throat, and, when he looked up, his teeth were bared in a snarl, the whites of his eyes flashing.

"Snape? _Snape_? How can this be?"

As the immediate shock of the news wore off, and he began to piece together the implications, Remus took on a glazed, hurt expression. A sombre film of sadness started to envelop him, like a Lethifold creeping up to smother him under cover of darkness.

"James. James and Lily," he mumbled, close to tears. "My dear, dearest old friends..."

x x x x x

"Can you see if you can find out who this belongs to, and give it back?" said Remus, handing Harry a shapeless, tunic-like garment made of a coarse, woven fabric dyed unevenly scarlet; the cuffs, collar and hems of which bore a wide band of multi-coloured, peasant-naïve embroidery. "I found it stuffed inside my Boggart cupboard. Someone must have been hoping that it would come out wearing it - everybody's worst nightmare, so to speak."

He was trying to sound cheerful, but Harry could see that Remus was still shaken and distraught beneath the levity. He had listened, for the most part in stolid silence, as Harry told him the whole story, going right back to the beginning with the arrival of James' poisoned letter. Harry could repeat that bit verbatim: it was indelibly quilled on his heart. At the description of Lily, Remus' grief welled over – he made no attempt to brush away the tears that rolled a zig-zag path through the bristly obstacle course of his cheeks, dripping off his chin onto the threadbare rug at his feet.

"All that suffering! All that terrible misery, and they never said a word to me. They were my best friends - I might have been able to help, but they kept their secret to the end. Oh Harry, that is very sad," he lamented, aching with retrospective empathy.

Harry was more reticent about his subsequent dealings with Snape and, luckily, Lupin didn't press him for details. He was still too absorbed in the pain of James' deception. He looked so woebegone and weary that Harry seriously wondered whether he should try putting him to bed, but Remus rallied and insisted that he'd be fine after another strong cup of tea. Harry thought he should eat something too - he assumed that the werewolf would be OK with normal, human food again now, and that the house elves would not be expected to rustle up a live goat.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," Lupin sniffed. "I get rather 'hormonal' just after the full moon. This has all been such a shock.."

After the emotionally vacuum-packed week with Snape, it was actually a relief for Harry to be with someone who could give vent to their feelings unashamedly and without restraint.

When Harry eventually rose to go, several _pots_ of tea later, Lupin tried to put some distance between himself and the mirage of deceitful memories, and to concentrate on the current dilemma:

"You know you don't have to stay with him, Harry. You've passed the Age of Attainment - you're a free agent. He's not the easiest man to get on with - he may make life difficult for you."

_Tell me about it_, thought Harry.

"Off you go then." Remus clasped Harry in a bear-hug of commiseration, causing Harry to gasp out loud as his bruises protested.

"Harry? Harry, what is it?" asked Remus, suddenly anxious as the boy winced and shrank from his embrace. "Is it your scar?"

"No."

Lupin dropped his hands from Harry's shoulders and stood, with arms folded, hackles raised, studying him intently. Eons elapsed as, in his mind, hypotheses evolved from the slime of suspicion, only to be condemned by common-sense to extinction. Finally Lupin spoke:

"Harry, unbutton your shirt."

There was a note of firm, unrelenting authority in his voice; it was impossible not to obey.

The bruises were mostly still at the 'liver and bacon' stage, though a few had ripened to a mottled, mature Sage Derby. They dappled Harry's entire torso, arms and shoulders: target circles in concentric tattoos of purple, brown and green, dotted with yellow bulls-eyes. Whiplash strokes cut across his body in red weals which broke the skin, like spreading vapour trails grazing a line across a bloodshot sky.

"Harry! Who has done this to you?" Lupin demanded, anger atoms splitting.

"I'm OK." Harry was covering up, fastening his shirt.

"Look at me, Harry! These are new bruises. Who did this? You can tell me. You don't need to be embarrassed. Harry? Was it Snape? Has he been hitting you?"

"I've got to go."

"Why are you defending him, Harry? Has he threatened you?"

"I've got to go," Harry repeated, more urgently. Friendship and duty tugged at opposite ends of the rope, dragging Harry first in one direction, then the other. His loyalties were divided like a serpent's tongue. Pushing his way roughly past Professor Lupin, he escaped into the corridor.

**END OF CHAPTER. Sorry, you've got to wait a bit longer to find out what happened to Harry. Next chapter: HERMIONE'S REVENGE. What _was_ that spell she cast on Ron? **( It doesn't matter, except that it's essential for the plot... [Ed] ).** What has she been saying to Draco? What does Luna's enigmatic comment mean?**

15


	4. Hermione's Revenge

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 4 :HERMIONE'S REVENGE**

Harry arrived only a few minutes late for Transfiguration, the last lesson of the afternoon. He apologised to Professor McGonagall, explaining that he had had a meeting with Lupin. The Deputy Head let it go at that - already Harry was sensing a certain wariness in the teachers' attitudes towards him, as though he were an alien substance pending final analysis. The benefit of the doubt was a useful commodity; one which Harry hoped to sample regularly.

Professor McGonagall had a pile of disgruntled letters on her desk. They shuffled and grumbled, the emphatic red underlines flashing like Clabbert pustules, until the ornamental paperweight - a purple Scottish thistle, embedded inside a perfect sphere of polished glass - rocked and tilted alarmingly. Pursing her lips in irritation, she gave the letters an admonitory smack with the end of her wand. The paperweight transformed into a smooth, heavy, granite Curling stone, and the shuffling ceased forthwith. She returned to writing her replies.

Hermione, dragging her nose out of her text-book for a nano-second, indicated the blackboard where the day's assignment - the week's assignment, more like, thought Harry as he read it through - was chalked up. _'Explain and enumerate all stages in the various Transfiguration processes that would be required to replicate the Cinderella story. Bonus points will be added if, at the end of the exercise, your pumpkin is sufficiently edible to be made into soup. (N.B. For Health and Safety reasons, all live rats must be primed with a Befuddlement Charm.)'_

Harry was stuck before he'd even started. He couldn't remember if the ugly sisters were just naturally hideous or if they had been hexed...

Later, outside the classroom, Hermione was bursting with enthusiasm:

"What a brilliant project! Wouldn't it be great if McGonagall lets us choose the best one and allows it to enact the whole story for us like a tableau vivant?"

Harry was less keen.

"Um. About the ugly sisters..." he began, doubtfully, but stopped as he saw Malfoy cruising in his direction, Crabbe and Goyle significantly visible in the background.

"I want a word with you, Potter," Malfoy drawled, his voice toxic.

Harry noted that they were back on surname terms; he wasn't surprised.

"Quilled any good essays today, Malfoy?" Hermione threw the comment at him with an uncharacteristic sneer. Harry boggled, failing to understand either Hermione's dig or Malfoy's equally barbed rejoinder:

"Do I detect a mouldy aroma? The delicate stench of Muggle mildew? Oh, it's you Granger. So sorry - didn't notice you there. Don't let me detain you, Granger. I'm sure you must be _itching_ to go and feed that flea-bitten fur-ball you call a cat..."

Hermione looked at him in horror, then uttering a shrill cry of "You wouldn't! You beast!" she rushed off towards the staircase leading to the Gryffindor common room.

"So, what's the story, Potter?" Malfoy had thrust his face unpleasantly close to Harry's. Harry could see the blackheads on his forehead, concealed beneath the sleek, blond quiff. "Lost your nerve at the last minute? Bottled out? Couldn't go through with it? Thought you'd gain more kudos from some half-baked mock heroics? Trying to make me look like an idiot were you, Potter?" His pride had suffered a knock. Harry wondered whether he had been bragging to his Death Eater associates about his part in Snape's downfall.

"Get rid of the Mensa Mob," Harry nodded towards Crabbe and Goyle who were making a poor job of pretending to appreciate a valuable portrait, 'The Cauldron-seller of Seville', at the end of the corridor.

When they were alone, Harry attempted to explain, but Draco clearly felt he had been used and humiliated.

"I should have known better than to expect a Gryffindor to do a decent job. A straightforward assassination and you foul it up. What's the matter - couldn't cope with a simple, little 'Crucio'? A touch of conscience trouble, Potter? But now you're Dumbledore's Darling again..."

"Shut up, Draco, it wasn't like that. And, I owe you one for not grassing on me..."

"Oh, spare me the gratitude! What do they always say - 'If a job's worth doing, let a Slytherin do it'? _I don't need you_, Potter."

Malfoy's show of bravado was almost convincing. He strolled away, straight-backed and haughty, but Harry had detected an air of disappointment, of betrayed trust and a hint of something sharper – desperation perhaps. His parting shot had left Harry feeling distinctly uneasy.

x x x x x

Harry approached the Fat Lady with his finger on his lips and whispered, "Ssshhhh!"

"Oooh!" she exclaimed, her ample cleavage rippling in anticipation, "Is there a secret? I love secrets. Opening doors all day does get so terribly dull. I don't even get a uniform. Always imagined I could be rather _alluring_ in navy with a lot of tassels and gold braid..."

"Please! Open up quietly. I want to hear if they're saying anything about me."

"Such an ego, for one so young!" she complained, but did as Harry asked.

With the round door fractionally open, Harry could eavesdrop quite effectively on the group in the Common room. As he had suspected, he was the main topic of conversation. He didn't recognise all the voices - thanks to Ginny's entourage, the place had been besieged by Ravenclaws. There seemed to be a lot of tiny shrieks followed by Hermione's anguished wail,

"I'm going to crucify that albino creep!"

Another knot of voices was talking about 'siding with the enemy' and 'sucking up to survive'. Harry's spine tingled; they were discussing him. The pompous tones of the Ravenclaw prefect, Anthony Goldstein, rose above the muddle of sound,

"That's what they call 'Stockholm Syndrome'."

There was a pause in Hermione's squeaking as she begged to contradict:

"No, surely that applies to situations in which the hostage allies himself with his kidnappers, and actively participates..."

Harry was galled that all his months of meticulous plotting and the sheer audacity of his plan's execution, not to mention the dramatic rescue finale (even if Draco wasn't impressed), had been reduced to the level of a psychological 'syndrome'. He stormed in.

"I wasn't kidnapped!" he declared, then, remembering his alibi, he back-pedalled, "Well, I was...but.. Hey! What's the matter with Hermione?" he changed the subject, kicking himself for his impetuosity.

She was sitting on one of the low chairs with Crookshanks, as usual, on her knee, though today he was perched rather primly in a Sphinx position, instead of doing his normal imitation of a comatose cushion. Hermione, with an expression of revulsion and dismay, was systematically parting his fur with her fingers, working her way from the special soft place just behind his ears, down the spine and all the way to the tip of the furiously lashing, tawny tail. She reminded Harry of a monkey grooming its mate for fleas... Every now and again she would emit one of the involuntary shrieks Harry had overheard, and make a grab for something amidst the dense fur.

"Problem?" Harry inquired, though the answer was obvious.

"That swine, Malfoy, has hexed him with '_Pulexio_!' He's absolutely crawling with fleas. And they're so quick - I can't catch them. Ugh. It makes me itchy just to touch him. _And_ that's not the worst of it - he's been asleep on my bed all day!"

"I'll sort him out for you," Ron offered, ambling over - the thrill of the hunt outweighing his sulk over their breakfast spat. "I've seen Hagrid do this to his chickens."

He stuck his wand into the infested fluff:

"_Poppulex!"_

A volley of tiny pops and sizzles burst forth, and exploding fat fleas shot out of the ginger fur like a batch of dark, leggy popcorn. With a banshee yeowl Crookshanks rocketed off Hermione's lap and took refuge under the cupboard, spitting instant death to anyone insane enough to approach.

"Stop it, Ron!" shrieked Hermione.

Somehow Ron managed to gurgle '_Finite_' before succumbing completely to the mass hysterics that gripped the room.

"I'm glad _you_ think it's funny," said Hermione in a huff.

"What does Hagrid _do _with the chickens, after using that spell?" Harry asked Ron, grateful for the diversion.

"Roasts them, mostly. Oh, I see..." said Ron, with dawning comprehension.

Harry was thinking back to the first Potions lesson of the term, though the aftershock of having narrowly missed being melted by Streeler venom had left his memories of that day rather hazy.

"Snape's got a Potion for infestations, hasn't he? Remember, he said it was good for poisoning Doxies and bugs and things. He's probably still got the ingredients in the lab."

Hermione considered the idea.

"I'll have to adapt it, so that it won't poison Crookshanks too. He's a cat, isn't he? Whatever we use, he's going to lick it..."

She deliberated for a while, carrying out a mental risk evaluation.

"Right. You're on. I'll give it a try. I'll need to borrow your Invisibility Cloak though, Harry."

"Whatever for?"

"Don't be obtuse. For when I sneak down to Snape's laboratory to steal the ingredients. I could do it tonight. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Harry was gawping at her in frank amazement.

"For Merlin's sake, Hermione, just go down and _ask_ him. Explain why you need the potion, and he'll give you the stuff. He'll probably make it for you. Just ask him - he won't bite."

"Who won't bite? Crookshanks? He jolly well will..." said Ron, still chuckling.

"You've changed a lot, you know," muttered Hermione to Harry. "A year ago you'd have been nicking ingredients just for the fun of it."

_And you wouldn't. Maybe I have changed, thought Harry; maybe it's just my attitude to Snape that's changed... Maybe I'm the same and it's the rest of the world that's different._

"I'm not the only one!" he countered. "What's going on with you and Malfoy?"

During Harry's absence, Hermione and Malfoy had had more contact than he had imagined. While not exactly snitching on Harry, the Slytherin had made it his mission to debunk Hermione's kinder interpretation of events.

"He kept saying all these dreadful things about you and Snape," Hermione said, somewhat apprehensive about repeating them in front of Harry, unsure how he might react. Harry could be both critical and defensive of Snape: his descriptions so far of the week at Snape Cottage had been beguilingly ambiguous.

"He said Snape had been in league with You-Know-Who all along - that he had delivered you to him as part of his Death Eater duty. Then he said that he deserved to die - that it served him right for betraying Lucius. I think he really wanted him to die. Malfoy said that if he were in your shoes he would have cut a deal with You-Know-Who - your life in return for exposing Snape's spying. Said he couldn't believe you hadn't thought of it! Seemed to think that was awfully funny.

"Harry, I was so sick of his stupid lies and insinuations - he got me really cross! So, before the Charms test last week - you've got to take it next Thursday, by the way - I swapped all his quills for ones made out of Augurey feathers. You know, the ones that repel ink. He couldn't write a word!"

Harry laughed obligingly. It was so typical of Hermione fondly to believe that the worst possible revenge was something that involved failing an exam. Malfoy had retaliated by putting a '_Mildew Mould'_ spell in Hermione's wardrobe, though how he had got into her dorm was a mystery. For days her clothes had reeked of musty dampness, foetor and decay.

"It was like wearing Malfoy's brain," she sniped.

Hermione's response had been, in Harry's estimation, below the belt. Quidditch solidarity had kicked in, and he found himself sympathising with the Slytherin as he heard how she had put Bundimuns in his broomstick, and all the aerodynamically perfect flight twigs had rotted off.

"Hermione! Draco flies a Firebolt F.I.T. !" he remonstrated. "That's sacrilege! I'm not surprised he knobbled Crookers. But it all sounds rather 'fungussy' - not very exciting."

She looked up at him from the rug where she was kneeling down trying to entice Crookshanks from under the furniture by rubbing her fingers together and mouthing strange, soft, kissy noises.

"Hmm. I suppose so. It's just that time of year. Lots of mouldy spores about," she replied vaguely. Then, in a harsh tone, totally unlike her normal voice:

"It's a Cold War with Malfoy. A War of Attrition. Stealth, strategy, sabotage - I'm going to grind him down like quartz crystals in a mortar."

There was something quite alarming about Hermione these days, Harry decided.

A warning growl revved from under the cupboard, a long, low, sustained vibrato. Luna Lovegood detached herself from the Ravenclaw clique and joined Hermione on the floor, expertly flicking and flitting a piebald Magpie feather just out of reach of the cat's swiping scalpels.

"Very nice fish restaurant in the Staden iwom Broarna," Luna commented, apropos of absolutely nothing, as far as Harry could tell. "In Stockholm," she added, unperturbed, continuing a conversation that had begun and ended with a one-liner at least half an hour previously.

Hermione was the first to catch the reference,

"Oh yes, you were going there with your Dad in the summer. Isn't the town hall on the bank of Lake Mälar meant to be some kind of architectural masterpiece? They call Stockholm the 'Venice of the North', don't they? Did you go everywhere in water-taxis and gondolas? Did you ever find a Crumple Horned Snorkack?"

As ever, Hermione's breadth of bucket-knowledge put Harry to shame. He could only look on and marvel.

"Not as such. That's not to say they're not there, though," Luna said mildly, straightening up and picking cat hairs off her robe.

"Hi Loony. How's life in 'Away-With-the-Pixies-Land'? Talked to any more trees? Read any more terrifying Tarots lately? When's our Harry going to meet a tall, dark stranger then?"

Luna was too easy a target, really, but Ron couldn't help teasing her anyway. She gave him - and Harry - the kind of pitying, scornful look that kids usually reserve for parents who have said something banal in front of their school-friends.

"He's already met him," she said oddly.

"I know what we need to get rid of the fleas!" Unable to rile Luna, Ron changed the subject back to the scratching cat. "One of those Muggle sucking gadgets!"

"A straw?" suggested Dean.

"Who would want to suck Muggles anyway?" said Neville.

"No. One of those things with a long pipe. A vacu- vacu- something."

"Vacuous idea?" said Hermione, with contempt.

"No. A vacuum-cleaner. We could use the nozzle to suck the fleas off."

"Oh, silly me, why didn't I think of that? And, naturally, Crookshanks is going to sit placidly while we vacuum vermin out of his fur with a long tube? I don't think so!"

"It'd work," Ron insisted. "Vacuums always work on the Enterprise. When they have a tricky alien they want to whoosh away into deep space, what do they do? '_Decompress the main Shuttle Bay_!' Whoa! Whooaaa! Heurgh-hic!"

A resounding hiccough and startled exclamation rolled into one loud, glottic whoop, erupted from Ron's mouth. At the same time, a translucent pink membrane began to balloon around Ron's head, enclosing him in an inflating soft-shell helmet, pearly, iridescent and undulating like a bubble-gum amoeba.

Hermione stood back and watched, a Cheshire Cat grin of pride and satisfaction replacing her face.

"It worked!" She was self-congratulatory. "The timing needs tweaking a bit - the _Hiccobubblus_ spell's supposed to cut in at the first mention of anything space-related. But - hey! - that's pretty neat, if I say so myself!"

She walked round Ron, surveying him from all angles, as if he were a living, modern art installation, with Ron all the while growing increasingly puce and frantic.

"Can he breathe inside that thing?" asked Harry.

"It should pop, any second...Now!" Hermione replied and, sure enough, the bubble burst on cue. Ron was left gasping for air, his face and hair plastered with the shreds of a candyfloss caul. Apoplectically sticky, he dived out of the Common room, clawing at the rosy goo that clogged his eyes and nose, and still wracked with fruity 'hic's.

Hermione hugged her triumph like a favourite teddy-bear.

"I've been waiting all day for that," she crooned, "ever since breakfast. You have no idea how many times today I've wanted to ask him if he'd run any good 'holodeck programmes' recently, or if he fancied a game of 'Parrises Squares'..."

"It'll take him all night to get that stuff out of his hair," Harry pointed out.

"Oh, a dollop of picoline should do it," Hermione said, airily.

"Picoline being...?"

"An industrial solvent made out of coal tar, horse urine and bone oil. I'm not joking! Look it up!"

"Hermione, what's got into you? Couldn't you have shut him up with a common or garden '_Silencio_'?"

"But where would be the fun in that? What's the point of being magical, if you can't enjoy it?" she demanded, assertively unrepentant.

If this was Girl Power, Harry wasn't sure he liked it very much.

Now that the show was over, the Ravenclaws were heading back to their own rooms. Luna was the last to leave, drifting behind the others, unhurried and self-contained. As she passed Harry she murmured,

"You should do it soon."

"Do what?"

"That thing you're going to do..."

**END OF CHAPTER 4. Next chapter: LIFE'S A BITCH. Lupin accosts Snape... Hermione makes the flea potion. But what does Harry say to upset Snape so much?**

15


	5. Life's A Bitch

**Author's note: this is a shortish chapter which doesn't advance the plot a great deal, but delves a bit further into the underlying tensions between Snape and Harry. Well, I like it...**

**Re: reviews - no, Harry isn't as dark in this story. I'm not really concentrating on Harry though, more on how the others react to him. Was Hermione OTT?? Nah!! Go Hermione!**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 5 : LIFE'S A BITCH**

"If you have exhausted your exiguous repertoire of expletives, kindly leave my room and take your moulting exuviae with you," Snape said, disdainfully eyeing the clumps of grey hair that smattered his office like down-spikes on a newly hatched vulture.

Lupin looked at the last, tell-tale evidence of his latest transformation, shed in the agitation of the past half hour.

"You'd better get used to it, Snape. This'll be you, one day. If you so much as lay a finger on that boy... I promise, you'll be lying awake through every single full moon for the rest of your putrid, perverted life, waiting and watching - because you'll never know if that is the month that I'm coming for you. One bite, Severus, that's all it takes..."

Snape leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head, at the same time stretching out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. He craned his head a little, provocatively exposing the throat.

"That, I take it, is a threat?" he asked smoothly.

"You may be his 'biological father' - " Remus spat out the phrase like an unappetising, infected gizzard, "but if you dare to practise any more of your depraved Death Eater tricks on Harry..."

"Dragon's blood! Have we got to go through this all over again? I reiterate: I have no intention of harming the boy. You yourself are far more likely to do so during one of your lycanthropic episodes. Incidentally, are you still finding the Wolfsbane Potion effective?"

Remus nodded in defeat. He knew Snape had him over a cauldron there.

"But what about the 'Therapy', Severus? Is that absolutely necessary? Harry hates the idea. Can't I speak to him instead? He'll talk to me: I've never had any trouble getting him to open up."

Snape drew himself back upright in his chair.

"No, you haven't," he conceded coldly, hating the fact. "The Ministry's decision was final and was only reached after prolonged... ...'negotiation'." He used the word advisedly. "In the current situation of political unrest, anything that will promote Muggle harmony is to receive our unequivocal support. If Fudge's ridiculous health initiative is to have any chance of success..."

"Blow the initiative!" shouted Lupin. "This is Harry we're talking about. He's not a pawn to be shunted around in some Green-paper peace plan for inter-Muggle/Wizard relations! He's not a damn girder to be riveted into one of the Ministry's strategies for societal bridge-building. He's just a kid! Fudge can build more bridges than that Victorian, Muggle chappie - what's his name? - Brunel ? for all I care, but I won't have Harry dragged into it. There must be an alternative!"

"The alternative is Azkaban," said Snape quietly. "The subject is closed. _Dura lex sed lex_. Now leave and, as I said before, take your furry filth with you."

After Remus had left the room, Snape heaved a volcanic sigh and slammed his fist down onto the desktop. Then he reached into his desk drawer, removed the concealed bottle and poured a slug of golden liquid, filling the glass to the shimmering brim.

X X X

"The teachers have been awfully busy and preoccupied," Hermione continued, chatting as she and Harry made their way down from the common room to the dungeons. She was breezy with relief, now that Harry had agreed to come with her to approach Snape for help.

"There were staff meetings almost every day last week. That's why they've been setting us all these tests and projects and so on - to keep us occupied, so that they can concentrate on whatever it is they're doing. "When the other Houses had to do their stint with the Dranda cubs - you know, it wasn't at all fair : they got to skip lessons all day so they could look after the cub babies; they didn't have to drag them round to lessons like we did..." she was belligerently aggrieved.

"McGonagall seemed to be paying lip-service to the whole scheme - there were none of those dire threats about 'negligence' and losing House points. She let them get away with murder. Ravenclaw spent all day hot-housing the babies with flash cards... Reckoned they'd raised their IQs by several points in just one afternoon. As far as I know, most of the guys in Slytherin got their parents to let them borrow their house elves for the day, so they didn't have to do any of the nurturing themselves. Apart from Crabbe, of course. I shouldn't laugh - it was awful, really. He accidentally sat on his baby and squashed it. Somebody said he tried CPR too, you know, 'cos we weren't supposed to use magic, and he caved-in the entire rib-cage. That's terrible, isn't it?"

By this time Harry, whose recollections of this exercise were of an excessively noisy, smelly and stressful day, was also feeling aggrieved.

"What about Hufflepuff?" he asked.

"They had it even easier, if that's possible. It was that really nice sunny day - well, it was up here; I don't know what it was like wherever you were - and they all wrapped up warm and had a picnic by the lake and spent their afternoon feeding the ducks and trying to spot Merpeople. What a doddle."

Harry could remember that sunny day all too clearly: the day that Snape had reached out to him and they had connected, on a human level, for all of a minute, two minutes at most, before he had recovered enough to repair the barricade, shore up the fortifications. For those precious minutes the dazzling October sun had penetrated even Snape's winter cloud cover. Ever since, Harry had been watching for signs of Spring...

Hermione was fairly subtle in her attempts to elicit information about Harry's week with Snape - the veiled question in the comment about the weather was a case in point. Rationing his revelations carefully like a falconer with meaty tit-bits, he introduced the subject of Braque. He knew he'd have to repeat it all later to Ron, who would be far more interested than Hermione in the unique experience of having slimy lizard saliva up one's nostrils.

"At least Snape's got something to talk to," Hermione reflected, viewing Braque from a more human perspective than Harry had intended. "It can't be much fun being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no one for company except a deaf house elf."

The words 'Snape' and 'fun' sat together about as well as 'Hagrid' and 'petite'.

"Quig's not so bad." Harry found himself defending the elf. "He gets really animated when he's mad at Snape - gesticulates wildly and jumps around like he's under 'Tarantallegra'. And the way Snape signs is so laid back and precise and, kind of, minimal - it's like watching some extraordinary double-act: he's so tall, and Quig's so little..."

_Fond memories? Those were the scariest sort_.

Hermione seemed to find Snape's choice of pet unexceptional, pointing out that if he had a garden full of snakes and frogs, what was so unusual about owning another reptile? She had, it goes without saying, already heard of Tuatara and could probably have told Harry a fact or two about their native habitat in New Zealand and their dinosaur ancestry. She was more interested in his name.

"Braque? You mean like the painter? One of the early Cubists?"

_You can skip the lecture, _thought Harry_, I've already had the Modern Art module from Snape_.

"I saw some of his pictures when my parents took me round the Tate. Quite powerful. Not exactly my taste, but I can see why they might appeal to Snape," she said, dropping into her intellectual mode.

_You can? It's a pity he's not your father then, if you find him so easy to understand._

"Well, they're non-figurative for a start, impersonal, multi-dimensional - he'd find all that attractive; and then there's probably something to do with the way they represent individuality and self-expression – all that defying convention and iconoclasm."

_And I thought it was all about violins and stair-cases and bowls of fruit._

"Does he like music?" Hermione was pursuing the artistic theme. "What does he like? - Bach? Mozart? The Hexing Harpies? I'd have him down as a Mahler man myself..."

"I don't know. I didn't ask."

"Harry, you were with him for a whole week? What _did_ you talk about?"

_Nothing. We spent the entire time arguing about nothing. I was too absorbed in my abstract, idealistic concept of fatherhood, and too angry with him for not living up to it. I didn't ever try to get to know him properly..._

The conversation, which had begun so brightly with Dranda bear cubs, had taken an introspective, compunctious turn. By the time they reached the dungeon steps, both Hermione and Harry had subtly adjusted their expectations of the Potions master.

X X X

Some indecipherable instinct suggested to Harry that, had they entered the dungeon without knocking, they would have found Snape slumped over the desk. It was difficult to say exactly what had given him this impression as, when they walked in, he appeared to be marking essays with his customary poise and energy. It was just a feeling.

"Come in, Harry," Snape said. His manner was unthreatening, approachable even - it might be stretching it to say 'encouraging', but Harry was emboldened all the same - however, on noticing Hermione, it shifted seamlessly into a cooler, more professional gear.

"You may also enter, Miss Granger. What can I do for you?"

When neither of them rushed to reply, Snape took the initiative.

"I assume, Potter, I _expect_ that you are here to inform me that you have reconsidered this morning's precipitate departure from my office."

He gave Harry the kind of look that left him in no doubt that a negative response would be about as advisable as trying to prune the Whomping Willow.

"Sort of," Harry mumbled.

"Do me the courtesy of using the correct form of address, and speaking in grammatical sentences which include the occasional consonant."

Harry felt let down. He had virtually promised Hermione that Snape would behave reasonably, and here he was, as starchily punctilious as ever. Or was it an act, for Hermione's benefit? One thing was certain, as far as Harry was concerned, Snape would never be accused of nepotism. Hermione, however, rose to the occasion:

"We're sorry to interrupt you, Sir, but I need the ingredients for a Potion, and Harry said you would be able to help."

She made her appeal confidently, trusting in her revised opinion of Snape's good-nature and, sensing that, Snape was disarmed. At one time he might have rebuked her priggishness, ridiculed her as an' insufferable know-it-all', but now the artlessness of Harry's faith in him curbed his tongue.

"Which items do you require, Miss Granger? For what purpose is the Potion to be used?"

As Hermione described Draco's use of the '_Pulexio_' spell, followed by Ron's impractical solution, a notional smile twitched Snape's lips. He rose and, without consulting any reference book, selected an assortment of phials and containers from a wall-mounted, glass-fronted cabinet, choosing the bottles unhesitatingly, with the assurance borne of experience and expert knowledge.

"A basic erigeronic compound should be sufficient to eradicate flea infestation," he told her, lining up the ingredients. A slim volume, its pages foxed and softened with age and use, slid from a shelf into his outstretched hand. "Refer to page 93; the quantities and method are all there. You may find the odour of Teledu musk unpleasant, but, I assure you, it is equally offensive to Siphonaptera. Remember, the 'wall mustard' must be ground to an extremely fine powder. As you say the Potion is for feline use, I would recommend omitting the Oil of Lavender and substitute Essence of Catmint. Be careful to check the concentration levels by titration before bottling. The small, copper cauldron will be adequate for the quantities you need. You may proceed, Miss Granger. I wish to speak to Potter."

Harry's heart, which had dared to beat normally again at Snape's thorough, if clinical, response to Hermione's request, started to fibrillate. He followed his father to the end of the lab, as far out of ear-shot as it was possible to go without leaving the room, and stood like a young seal about to be flensed.

"How are you, Harry?" Snape asked, coolly yet with a trace of chagrin.

"Fine."

"No lasting damage?"

"No, Sir."

"Because I have just had a visit from your vulpine friend, who seems to be labouring under the impression that I am responsible for certain 'injuries' you may have sustained. For the last half hour I have been subjected to his invidious accusations, and the implication that my parental methods are, at best, procrustean, if not positively ..."

He swung away from Harry and braced himself against the nearest desk, his knuckles pressed hard down onto the graffiti-scored wooden lid, as outrage cracked through his composure.

"On what basis, Potter, does he see fit to question my probity? Potter?" The whisper slipped from his lips, cold and dangerous: a polar bear sliding off an ice-floe into the Arctic sea.

"I'm sorry, Sir. Professor Lupin just jumped to conclusions. I didn't tell him anything."

"I thought I had made myself absolutely clear..." The threatening note had returned.

"You did, Sir."

"You would do well to remember it."

From his cloak pocket Snape extracted a short bottle made of thick, ridged, purple glass. Checking that Hermione was still studiously engaged in her potion-making, he passed the bottle to Harry.

"It is a lotion, Harry. Apply it directly to the skin and it will reduce inflammation, relieve swelling and alleviate bruising. It may save you further embarrassing questions."

_And hide the evidence_, thought Harry, uncharitably, still sore.

Snape looked suddenly hurt, as though he had given Harry a precious Golden Snidget feather and Harry had swapped it for a Chocolate Frog. He walked briskly to the front of the classroom.

"Finished, Miss Granger?"

Hermione jumped, hurrying to stopper the miniature flagon of crystal clear, periwinkle blue potion. Snape examined it critically, finding it, however, faultless.

"Excellent work," he said, uncharacteristically giving it due credit.

Hermione was not averse to a bit of bridge-building of her own.

"Thank you for your help, Professor. Harry said you were..." she faltered. _What had Harry said about Snape?_ _Not much that could be said to his face_. She wished she hadn't embarked on the sentence. "He said you were OK," she tailed-off, lamely. That didn't merit a reply, not even his customary, "Indeed?" He hardly seemed to hear her. She looked at him anxiously, on the verge of asking if he were alright. He strode to his desk and sat down, picking up his quill and preparing to resume his marking.

"Potter!"

Harry had stayed at the back of the room and was sitting on the desk, aimlessly deepening one of the etched initials, prising off wood splinters with his fingernails.

"Potter, I do not intend to burden you with the rationale behind my decision, but I must insist on your co-operation in the matter of the therapy. The Ministry is holding me accountable for your behaviour. Now, go away, I have work to do."

He took a large gulp from a glass on his desk.

"Did you hear that, Potter," he called. "_I_ am being held accountable for _you_!" He gave a strange, bitter laugh. "_Sunt lacrimae rerum_! What the hell did Vergil know about it?"

X X X

Hermione stared at Harry anxiously.

"Wow! What just happened there? What's all that about the Ministry and therapy? And was that Firewhisky he was drinking?"

"Don't ask!" Harry groaned. He attempted to make light of it. "Forget about all that stuff. You've got the Potion, that's the main thing. What have you got to do with it - shampoo it in? Crookers will go mental. Snape thought the story about Malfoy was funny though..."

"Did he? How on earth could you tell?" Hermione did not want to be side-tracked. "Harry, what was going on in there? What did you do to upset him? Couldn't you have been a bit nicer?"

There was something possessive and almost 'womanly' about her concern for Snape that gave Harry the most ghastly idea.

"Hermione, please, **_please_** tell me that you do **not** fancy my father," he begged, repelled and scarcely able to entertain the belief.

"Of course not! What utter rubbish!" she exclaimed. "I just think you could try being a bit kinder to him, that's all."

"I tried that once," said Harry, "and he went to pieces..."

X X X

"Professor Dumbledore, Sir!" Hermione accosted the Headmaster in the corridor. "Can I ask you something, Sir?"

"Fire away. Though if you want to know my prediction for our entry's chances in the Euro-Wizard Song Contest, that might be rather more in Professor Trelawney's line. I'm afraid I am not Hogwarts' resident musical expert. Madam Hooch, on the other hand is quite another flagon of fish - you should hear her acoustic rendition of 'Wand on the Water'..."

"Professor!" Hermione had no time for the pop scene. "What does this Latin mean, Sir? _'Sunt lacrimae rerum'_?"

"Aha! One of the most delightfully untranslatable phrases denoting the quintessential melancholy of the human condition. One can only paraphrase; it's impossible to convey the splendid linguistic economy of the original. Three such simple words..."

"Yes, Sir, but what do they _mean_?" insisted Hermione.

"Ah, well now, it's tricky to put it into a vernacular that would be meaningful to your generation. Let me see... Ah, yes, I have it. I think you might render it as '_Life's a bitch_!' or possibly even '_Everything sucks_!' Now who, may I ask, has been introducing your tender minds to such gloomy truisms?"

"Professor Snape, Sir," Hermione replied, disturbed by the translation.

"Was it, by Jove! Well, well. Severus said that? Then there's hope for him yet!"

Dumbledore trotted away humming a strangely familiar guitar riff...

**END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: THERAPY. Harry meets his therapist and he _tries_ to talk to Luna...**

14


	6. Therapy

**_Author's note_: My beta thinks I'm stretching credulity with the portrayal of Fudge here... Well, maybe I am, but I just wanted the therapist to be a Muggle... **

**Reviews: Loved the AM/FM analogy. Thanks. Glad it's coming over like that. The way I see it HP and SS are both trying, in their own way, but find it _really_ difficult to get on the same wavelength. And why is it always Harry that gets the sympathy? And, yes, Dumbledore is mainly light relief in this one.**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 6 : THERAPY**

The **W.H.I.I.M.P.** Programme (_Wizard Health Initiative: Interactive Muggle Participation_) was one of Cornelius Fudge's pet projects. His wife was on the executive steering committee which had drafted the initial proposal. In the interests of Fudge family harmony, not to mention that of the wider wizard community, the scheme had been guaranteed Ministerial backing.

It had not been without its detractors. There were many die-hard conservatives in the wizard world, Purebloods mostly, who believed that consorting with Muggles under any circumstances was a grave mistake, the road to ruin. But Fudge was enjoying re-branding himself as a political progressive in the field of Muggle relations. He intended to ensure his place in the history books through a policy of radical social reform.

The timing was, admittedly, problematical. The recent wave of Muggle unrest following the attacks by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had put the entire scheme in jeopardy. Fudge had some serious sliming to do, in order to get the programme back on track. There was mileage in it, he was certain.

The pilot project, in which Hogwarts was taking part, involved a job swap: a Muggle doctor would spend time in the school, and Madam Pomfrey had a reciprocal arrangement with a Muggle Hospital that had links with St. Mungo's.

The idea to use Harry as a test case, as part of his disciplinary proceedings, struck Fudge as inspirational, a brainwave with which he could stun two trolls with one spell. Firstly, it addressed the problem of how to punish the blasted Potter boy - something had to be done, that was certain, and the Ministry looked to Fudge for leadership, but he was blowed if he knew what to do with the boy either. This surely would be seen as a liberal, caring, constructive solution - a real _vote puller_. Secondly, Fudge knew that Dumbledore would consider the proposal an invasive intrusion which undermined his authority, and it felt dashed good to ride slip-shod over his objections. And objections there had been, mainly from that ghastly, formidable Professor Snape, who had argued so vehemently against the project that Fudge had been obliged to play his trump card: the threat of Azkaban.

With Muggle/Wizard diplomatic relations diving towards an all time low in the wake of the outbreak of magical vandalism, and Fudge's popularity sinking daily in the polls, any initiative that would foster goodwill and raise his personal profile was to be strongly endorsed.

X X X

Session 1

Harry watched the clock as the big hand mugged another minute and lurched drunkenly towards the 3. The small hand was loitering with intent round about the 7. Only another fifteen minutes to go.

Every passing second reinforced his determination that he would not be the one to break the ice and speak first. He was prepared to sit in silence for the entire, sodding fifty minutes if necessary. He hadn't asked to be here; he would co-operate in so far as he would turn up at the designated time, but there was no way he was going to _say_ anything.

It wasn't that he was worried about any stigma attached to being 'in therapy' - though he prayed that Malfoy never got wind of it - in fact, the idea was quite cool. All celebrities had shrinks. And even Snape had acknowledged, right in his first term at Hogwarts, that Harry was a celebrity.

It just seemed so pointless, especially at a time when, even if he wasn't allowed to play himself, he might have been watching the rest of the Gryffindor team practising Quidditch.

What was he supposed to talk about anyway? What did they want him to say? Did they honestly expect him to spill his life story to an anonymous Muggle medic who had never even met a wizard before?

He had thought Snape, at least, would have opposed the idea - surely he didn't believe in all this psychological garbage - but, inexplicably, he appeared to condone it. How on earth could he support a scheme in which a complete stranger was allowed to mess with Harry's mind? That should have been total anathema to Snape - but no, he couldn't care less! The more Harry thought about it, however, the more he had to admit that he might be being unfair to Snape here. This decision would not have been taken lightly; Snape did not make arbitrary arrangements - he had told him so; he was nothing if not calculating.

Harry realised he was part of a bigger picture. Snape had hinted as much, though he refused to go into details. Why was that? What was it that Harry was not deemed mature enough to know? When would Snape begin to treat him like the adult wizard he now, officially, was?

The big hand lunged at the 4. Harry was growing ever more conscious of his body language. He made a deliberate attempt to appear relaxed and nonchalant. It was important to look confident and positive, open, receptive - not stressed, tense and defensive. He didn't want the guy picking up on any signals and misreading the 'tells'. _I shouldn't cross my legs, or fold my arms, or bite my nails, or tap my foot, or scratch my nose, or rub my eye, or drum my fingers, or blink or fidget - what am I allowed to do? Is it OK to breathe? Yes, but not too fast or too deeply... _At what point did a normal, average, instinctive, physical movement such as a yawn or a stretch or the flicker of an eyelid, cease being natural and cross the threshold into 'suspicious'? But sitting perfectly still was also unnatural and therefore equally suspicious...

Harry felt the muscles in his arms tensing as he gripped the arms of his chair, and he willed them to loosen. Slowly, and very casually, so as not to appear premeditated, he slid his arm down to rest on his thigh. The palms of his hands were damp. He pressed them into the fabric of his trousers, covertly wiping away the sweat. He might have to shake hands at the end of the session. Perspiration was pooling in his armpits. He would never have imagined that saying nothing would be so stressful.

The Room of Requirement obviously didn't think the situation called for much in the way of furniture. There were the two chairs - angular, thinly-padded, institutional seating in shiny, black, wash-down vinyl - separated by a low, circular coffee table, and another table on the far side of the room, specifically, so it would seem, for the clock. If Harry stared at the clock, would that be interpreted as impatience, as an indication of his anxiety for the session to end? If he ignored the clock, was that displaying an ego-centric disregard for the requirements of the system; was it temporal anarchy? If he looked straight ahead, he was still aware of the clock on his left, blurring at the edges of his peripheral vision - could he still make out the numerals...? How much longer now?

He had expected a couch. Isn't that what you did with a shrink? Lie on a couch, while the guy sat behind you, out of sight, and asked searching questions about dreams in an unconvincing Austrian accent? Harry didn't need his dreams interpreting: they were self-explanatory; they held horrors but no secrets.

The big hand tip-toed forwards towards the 5, cosh raised...

Without making eye-contact, Harry examined the Muggle psychologist. Mr. Lardon was plump - not fat, not gross or obese, not wobble-jowled with rolls of beer-belly over-spilling a straining waistband; give him another ten years... - just plump and smooth, with no discernible angles or creases. He might have been moulded out of room-temperature butter.

It was impossible to guess his age - his face was rounded, clean-shaven with no hint of definition either from cheekbones or a beard shadow. His hair was a non-descript brown, cut short and sparse, the pinkish scalp showing through. His fingers, Harry noticed, all seemed to be the same diameter; they curved around his pen like a ski-glove, giving no impression of being jointed. It's amazing he can write at all, thought Harry.

What was he _writing_? Harry was immediately self-conscious again. What had he done or _not done_ that was noteworthy?

The Muggle was systematically sampling his way through a large packet of _Every Flavour Beans_. Every so often a chubby hand would slide down to the packet, concealed discreetly in his jacket pocket, select a bean and glide up again to pop it into his cherubic, wet-lipped mouth, in one fluid, continuous, circular, oily motion.

Seeing Harry's eyes upon him, Mr Lardon gave him an encouraging smile...

By this time Harry was speechless, but for a different reason - frustration! Wasn't this bloated baby-face going to ask him any questions? What sort of therapy was this anyway? If all the guy was going to do was sit and eat sweets, they might as well do it outside in the Stands watching the Quidditch! Harry could feel himself getting irritated and angry... The door was only feet away; he could walk out at any time. Walk out? Slam the door? Wasn't that exactly what _they_ were all waiting for him to do? He was falling into their trap! Heads you win, tails I lose...

The big hand felled the half hour with a hammer blow to the 6. Harry looked up hopefully.

"I'm afraid we have to stop there, Mr. Potter," slurped Mr. Lardon, salivating profusely on a Spicy Chilli Bean which had sent his unsuspecting taste-buds into overdrive. He extended a warm, podgy paw.

"I think we have made a promising start. I'll see you tomorrow."

_Well, I think it was a complete and utter, bloody waste of time_, fumed Harry to himself.

X X X

Quidditch practice was over; Harry had missed it. Most of the team and their supporters had disappeared, but Luna Lovegood was one of the stragglers. She was waiting for Ginny who had accidentally put a Knotting jinx on her laces and was still in the girls' changing room, struggling to get her boots off.

Harry marched straight up to Luna. Her face looked pinched and cold despite the fact that she appeared to be wearing a rag-rug jumper under her cloak. Her long, blond hair was not visible, stuffed up into a brown, crocheted tam-o-shanter. Her day-glo green ear-rings might have been made out of pasta fusilli.

"What did you mean the other day?" he demanded, coming straight to the point.

"Hello, Harry. My hands are freezing. Feel!"

She put her icy palms up to Harry's cheeks, a gesture completely devoid of any flirtatious overtones.

"How was the therapy?" she asked, substituting her own query for Harry's. "Ginny's taking forever. She could have used '_Diffindo'_ to untie her laces, but she's left her wand in the dormitory with the rest of her clothes. Said it was too cold to get changed down here, except for the boots, you see."

Harry wondered why Luna hadn't used her own wand, which was it its habitual place, stuck behind her left ear, but he didn't bother to ask - he'd only get a daft reply.

"How do you know about the therapy?"

"Is it a secret?" She was less good at replies, better at questions.

"Great! Everybody'll think I'm nuts!"

"My Dad says it's all a Ministry white-wash anyway, all this '_WHIIMP'_ project. You just happen to be the patsy this time. Don't worry about it. I know about therapy. Been there, seen it, done it, read the book, got the Diazepam... After my mother died, you know... What sort are you having - Analytical, Behavioural, Cognitive or just basic counselling?"

Harry was not used to being asked such direct questions, at least not by fifth year girls he hardly knew. But she seemed genuinely interested, not dredging his psyche for scandal or gossip. The names she had mentioned were mere words to Harry.

"Dunno," he replied. "I just sat there. I think I was supposed to choose my own subject, or set the agenda, or 'free associate', or whatever they call it. We got absolutely nowhere."

"That 'listening' approach is very slow... It can take forever to make any progress."

"_Listening_? He didn't have to do any listening. I didn't _say_ anything."

"Exactly. You could go on for months like that. It takes time to change your self-image, to make yourself feel more positive and realise that you've got some sort of potential for self-fulfilment. Did you get the feeling that the therapist was treating you with, - now, how do they phrase it ? - 'total, non-judgemental acceptance'? That's always a laugh! He's supposed to be building up 'an atmosphere of spontaneity and trust' - well, that's what my guy always said. What was yours like?"

"Fat," said Harry.

"Give it a chance, Harry. There are some good things about this sort of therapy - it can open the way to exploring deeper levels of consciousness, which is never a bad thing. You must learn to ask the right questions - that's the only way to find the answers you are seeking... Once you know what you really want, then you can search for a way to get it."

All of a sudden she sounded alarmingly profound.

"I don't think it will address all your problems though, Harry - it's not going to explain why you can be such a pain in the arse, or why you try to kill people. That's something a lot more _primal_. Perhaps you should go for 'regression' and relive your original trauma."

"No way. I can do that quite nicely on my own, thanks," said Harry, thinking of his nightmares.

"No, you need something that will get quicker results, otherwise you may never see another Quidditch practice... get Professor Snape to tell your analyst that he has to focus on your specific issues."

"Why should I be getting Snape to do it?" Harry was suddenly wary of Luna. She wasn't as feather-brained as she would have you believe: she was weird but not stupid. She gave him that odd look again.

"OK, get Dumbledore then..."

"Luna, how do you know all this?"

It was becoming more and more apparent to Harry that he rated people on a very superficial scale. With Luna he had never bothered to see beyond the ethnic, thrift-shop clothes and freaky ear-rings. She had surprised him once before, on the Thestral flight to the Ministry, on that ill-fated rescue mission, but since then he had let her lapse back into kookiness without a second thought.

"I'm interested in things and people," she said vaguely.

X X X

Session 2

Snape must have put the fear of Merlin into the psychologist. Harry felt sorry for the man - you would have to be pretty bombproof around wizards not to be scared of Snape, and Mr. Lardon was a novice in the magical world. He was so willing to be proactive that his questionnaire almost leaped out at Harry as he came through the door. Today the air was sparkling with psychological potential... Harry thought he might even enjoy himself. He could either wallow or be utterly brazen...

"...if we explore a little into your background, your memories, your motivations, Harry - you don't mind if I call you Harry?"

Harry didn't mind.

"Perhaps we can start with your earliest recollections - of your parents perhaps?"

Harry hesitated. Then he went for it. Big Time.

"My earliest memory is of my mother's dying screams as she was murdered by an evil wizard who wished to achieve world domination," he stated baldly. "My father was also killed. I was just a baby."

Mr Lardon's eyes had widened and his fat hand was busily taking notes: _**primal pain, early exposure to violence, abandonment issues, loss, separation anxiety...**_

"Then," continued Harry, getting into his stride, "for ten years I lived with my Aunt and Uncle who kept me locked up in a cupboard..."

_'**physical and mental neglect; loss of self-esteem, absence of positive reinforcement, lack of role models, 'closet' concerns over sexuality, emotional repression...'**_

"...and then I found out that I was a wizard with special powers. I came to Hogwarts and fought the Dark Lord Voldemort who was living inside Professor Quirrel's turban, and killed the Basilisk..."

Harry dwelled vividly on some of the more exotic characters and events of the past five years: the Dementors, Buckbeak, the Flying Ford Anglia, the Tri-Wizard tournament, Aragog, Fluffy, Grawp...

The psychologist paused to waggle his fingers, warding off writer's cramp: '**_mythological obsessions, underlying aggression, violent tendencies, heroic egotism, self-aggrandisement, self-destructive patterns...'_**

Harry moved on to the Marauders:

"Of course, my Dad - I thought he was my Dad, but actually he was an embittered fraud who was dallying with the Dark side and who wanted to force me into a life of crime... - well, he was a Stag. And my Godfather - he's dead, by the way - was a large black dog. They had a friend who was a rat, but I only met him a couple of times and I didn't like him much; and their best friend was a werewolf... Still is, actually; nice man."

_'**anthropomorphic delusions, escapist fantasies; bereavement issues..**_

"It sounds as though the last few years have been a difficult place for you to be in, Harry."

Oh no, thought Harry. I'm not going to be drawn in to some vapid soul-searching. I want real questions. He waited. Mr Lardon turned onto a new page in his notebook.

"Ah yes, now we'll move on a little to your present circumstances. I understand, Harry, that you are no longer in the care of your Aunt and her family?"

"In term time I live here, at Hogwarts. In the holidays I suppose I will live with my real father - I think you have met him - Professor Snape?"

It felt bold and pleasantly liberating to be able to refer to Snape in that way, without having to concern himself about the onion layers of shock, negative association, tarnished reputation and disapproval that a wizard would unpeel in the revelation. Mr Lardon, even so, paled a little at the memory of meeting Snape. He hurriedly referred to his list.

"How would you characterise your relationship with your father?"

Harry had by now warmed to his theme; truth was relative:

"Well, it was difficult at first because he is an assassin and spy who raped my mother, which is why - naturally - I wanted to kill him. And he's not the easiest person to talk to... My Godfather was much more easy going, but I only met him recently after he escaped from Azkaban - he was in prison for twelve years on a charge of mass murder..."

_'**Oedipal inclinations, psychopathic behaviour, antisocial values, criminal associates...**_

As the end of the fifty minutes approached, the floundering therapist tried to sum up:

"...so, Harry, apart from these feelings of betrayal, disillusionment, inability to communicate, depression, fear of intimacy and dependency, resentment of authority, lack of self-esteem, and what you describe as your 'hero complex', is there anything else that you want to tell me about?"

"Well, there is the... _Anger_!"said Harry, pausing for effect.

"Of course!" Mr Lardon gave a strained, high-pitched giggle. "And how do your feelings of anger manifest themselves?"

"Er..." Harry considered how to answer the question most effectively. "I do lose my temper quite easily; I find myself shouting and I have to get away and be on my own..."

"Quite understandable, nothing unusual there; nothing we can't work through together..." The therapist sighed to be back on safe territory.

"And sometimes," Harry continued in a fey voice, "I lose my rag altogether, like with Aunt Marge - I inflated her until she swelled up like a barrage balloon. And when I'm very angry I do try to kill people, like Voldemort and my father... Now, when my father gets angry, he explodes things, or poisons them..."

Mr Lardon looked as though he could well believe it. He was beginning to feel rather queasy; he dabbed at his upper lip with a square of folded handkerchief.

"And then there are the dreams!" declared Harry ghoulishly.

"Dreams! Of course, why not?" muttered the shrink weakly, once more picking up his pen.

"The bloodcurdling flashbacks to my mothers assassination aren't so bad now that I've had the Occlumency training - that's a kind of mind control technique that my father uses in his work."

"It would be." Mr Lardon nodded vigorously in agreement, trying to quell the stirrings of hysteria that were scrabbling at his insides. A slight tic began to twitch the corner of his left eye.

"And the dream about Mr Weasley being attacked by a giant serpent was more of a telepathically induced illusion..."

_'**dreams about big snakes...'**_

"More recently I've had this one about being waylaid by a short, bald penguin who beats me with an enormous purple mushroom..."

**_'substance abuse, psychotropic hallucinations..._**

Mr Lardon who, for the last few minutes, had been watching the clock almost as avidly as Harry, clicked the top onto his pen and closed his folder. He face was flushed pink, with a ready-basted, oily sheen.

"I'm afraid we have to stop there, Mr Potter. A most _productive_ session, don't you think? There's a lot of material here."

"You could always discuss it with my father," offered Harry, keen to make his parting shot a telling one. "I'm sure he'd be only too happy..."

"Oh no! Thank you." The psychologist held out a limp, clammy hand, "Goodbye, Mr Potter."

It was only after he had left that Harry realised he had forgotten to mention his most recent recurring dream: the one where he was flying, weightless through an archway and down a tunnel with his hand outstretched to catch a shadowy, stolen Snitch that spoke to him and fluttered ahead of him, elusively out of reach.

He also realised that Luna had not answered his question. What had she meant that day in the common room?

**END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: LUNA'S PROPOSAL. What happens in Harry's next therapy session? Ron feels slighted. Does Luna mean what Harry thinks she means?**

P.S. The upload programme has done something weird to my punctuation... Tried to edit the bloopers out; sorry if I've missed any.

17


	7. Luna's Proposal

**Author's note: Thanks everybody. Glad you seemed to like the therapy... I'm counting on 'patient confidentiality' to keep Harry's secrets safe. Maybe I'm naïve... **

**Just a word to duj : I hadn't really got going on Luna in the last chapter. Hope this one redresses the balance. And I've done so much Harry anxst in my earlier stories (esp SNAPE'S CONFESSION) that I've backed off a bit here. So, maybe Harry does come across as slightly brainless; I think he is a pretty self-absorbed guy though.**

**Also to duj: shall I turn this into a slushy SS/HG fic just to annoy you? !! (I've not done one of those yet, but who's to say I won't???????)**

**To Tina: if Harry got what he deserved he'd have been expelled ages ago, so I'm a bit stuck there. Who do you think I am - Umbridge? I think that's part of the problem: no one knows what to do about him (including me!)**

**Be patient - you_ will_ find out what happened to Harry - it's in chapter 9, I think...**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 7: LUNA'S PROPOSAL**

Harry slouched along the corridor, his bag slung loosely by one strap over his dipped shoulder, scuffing his feet on the stone floor as he kicked a pebble in front of him a short distance, caught up with it and kicked again. It was repetitively mindless; _it was Ron's head..._

"I wouldn't do that to pebbles if I were you, young Sir - you never know when Peeves may have replaced them with Puff Pods or Dung Bombs..."

The ghost of Sir Nicholas Mimsy-Porpington appeared through the right-hand wall, slightly ahead of Harry, and crossed his path in front of him, doffing his hat with a chivalrous bow and a careful nod of his partially severed head.

"Hi Nick; bye Nick," said Harry, as the ghost vanished into the opposite wall, taking the most direct route to his destination.

Harry aimed a particularly vicious swipe at the pebble and booted it hard. It sailed into the air and hit one of the antique oil paintings with a resounding _clang_. Harry mooched over to see what damage he'd done - knowing his luck today, the picture would be beyond repair. The armour-clad figure of a Knight was examining a new dent in his breast-plate.

"Zounds!" he exclaimed on seeing Harry. "Prithee, Sir, vouchsafe me this: in what wise have I engendered thy displeasure? Go to! young Squire, Go to! I say! Avaunt!"

"Oh, shut it!" snapped Harry, hardly in the mood for Elizabethan derring-do.

It had been a totally rotten day, and just when Harry thought it couldn't get any worse, he had remembered that he was due to go to his third session with that lump of Muggle marbling, Mr Lardon. The therapy sessions were to be daily for the first week, and weekly thereafter - after only two, Harry was already sick of the sight of those piggy, water-retentive features, the incessant slobbery sucking as the man persevered with the Every Flavour Beans (even the toe-jam flavoured one), and the burgeoning symptoms of panic as he strove to maintain the pretence that counselling psychotic, adolescent wizards was all in a day's work.

That afternoon the Charms test, about which Hermione had, in all fairness, warned Harry had, nevertheless, taken him completely by surprise. He had turned up in class, wand in hand, confidently expecting to do magic - a Growth charm or two, some advanced Hovering or Cheering; he was quite happy to Engorge the odd Flobberworm or demonstrate NEWT level skill with the Colour Change charm by camouflaging a Parrot fish so that it remained undetectable amidst a shoal of Zebra guppies. It had never occurred to him that the test would be theoretical.

"Wand away, Mr Potter," squeaked Professor Flitwick. The echo of Professor Umbridge's killjoy catchphrase tolled like a death knoll. Harry turned over the question sheet:

**Question 1**: Explain how the _Protean Charm_ was used by both Goblins and Dwarves in the 1891 assault on Gringotts' vault.

**Question 2**: How would you take a Puffskein, a Chimaera and a Fire Crab across a river in a small boat capable of carrying only yourself and one creature, using only _Densaugeo_, _Ricktusempra_ and _Waddiwasi_. Each Charm may be used only once.

**Question 3**: Explain the differences between _Quietus_ and _Silencio_. Give three examples of the use of each Charm to illustrate your answer.

Harry picked up his quill and turned his attention to the first question. He was sure the answer had something to do with gremlins or custard, but he couldn't remember the exact context. As he half-heartedly scoured his memory, he started to doodle a floppy-eared goblin, but the scribble somehow turned into a Snitch flying towards a goal hoop, which turned into a tunnel...

That Thursday had got off to a bad start. Harry had had his Snitch dream again, only this time he was also being hounded by a Bludger which kept shouting at him, "What do you really want?" in Luna Lovegood's voice. Then he had woken with a shock to find Pig, Ron's owl, trapped inside his bed-curtains, cannoning from side to side like a feathery squash ball in a red velvet squash court.

When he pulled one curtain aside to make a gap for Pig to escape, Harry could see Ron sitting on his own bed, a letter on the covers beside him. From the way the parchment flickered and changed colour and grunted occasional animal noises, Harry guessed it came from Ron's brothers, Fred and George.

"Since when has Pig been moon-lighting as an alarm clock?" Harry grumbled, his sense of humour still only half-awake.

Ron stared at him sullenly.

"When were you going to tell me?" he asked in a wounded voice, throbbing with accusation.

"Tell you?"

"Yeah, when were you going to mention the tiny, oh so insignificant, minor detail that that slimy, sleaze-bag, grease-ball _git_ is your father? Hermione obviously knows. How come you told her and not me?"

The 'Extendable Ears' must have been working overtime in the Weasley household.

"Oh." Harry was mentally unprepared to mount a cogent defence so early in the morning.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out? Who else knows? Am I the only one that doesn't? Is that why you were getting so buddy with Malfoy all of a sudden. Next thing you'll be saying that Lucius is your long-lost uncle. What else haven't you been telling me? I thought we were friends, Harry."

"I'll tell you something Hermione doesn't know," Harry offered, hoping to placate Ron with a trade off. "Draco was right - I wasn't kidnapped."

Ron listened coldly, but this belated information didn't produce the desired effect. Ron was deeply offended that Harry had not seen fit to enlist his help in despatching Snape.

"How come you trusted that Slytherin shit-head and not me? I'd 've helped you. Grass up Snape? Just try and stop me! But, oh no, you'd rather trust that mingin' Malfoy... I don't get you, Harry."

How could Harry explain to Ron that it was _because_ he, Ron, hated Snape so much that he had not been told? ..._because_ Ron would have been too keen, too eager to help; he would have egged Harry on, treated the whole plan like the ultimate Zonko's joke, spurred Harry to rash action - whereas Harry's plot had needed to thicken in cold blood, to mature over time like a fine wine in a cool, dark cellar. ..._because_ Ron might not, at the last minute, have had the nerve to go through with it... If Harry's crystal ball had an irony detector, it would at this point have been flashing like a Belisha Beacon.

How could he convince Ron that he had enlisted Draco purely for the sake of his Death Eater contacts?

How could he explain that he had needed Hermione's compassion to reinforce his alibi - she had done a good job too, persuading people that Snape had rushed to Harry's rescue, only to be taken prisoner himself. But there was more to it than that. She had concentrated on Snape's qualities, accentuated the advantages of having a parent - even a parent like Snape. In the days when it had felt as though acknowledging Snape as his father would be like welcoming the Apocalypse, Hermione's had been the voice of redemption. At those times when the choking undergrowth was set to strangle Harry, she had helped him to see beyond the _horror_ to a stream of acceptance, a navigable escape route out of the jungle.

X X X

Ron had pointedly shunned him at breakfast, so Harry sat with Hermione, even though he had already heard her epic monologue about the Shampooing of Crookshanks. His dream and the voice of the Luna/Bludger were waltzing in his mind: _'What do you really want, Harry?_'

"Hermione," he asked suddenly, spoiling her punch-line which, if he remembered correctly, was something about a flea-market and a circus. "Where do you think Dumbledore keeps the mirror now - you know, the Mirror of Erised? Didn't he say something about putting it in the Chamber of Secrets?"

She glared at him, miffed at the interruption.

"He told you to keep away from it, Harry. And you're **not** going down there again."

"I know, but..." It would be the easiest way to answer Luna's insistent question. An easy life was an appealing thought.

"He'll have moved it again by now," Hermione said sensibly. "It turns up all over the place, doesn't it, when you least expect it. A bit like Kubrick's Slab?"

"_Who_'s _what_?"

"The slab of stone that keeps appearing across time and space for no apparent reason in Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'. No one knows if it symbolises the dawn of self-awareness, or creativity, or divine inspiration or Gnosis..."

Harry wished he had never asked.

"Do you know something, Hermione? You have been spending_ way too much_ time with Ron," said Harry, unable to stomach metaphysics before breakfast.

X X X

Session 3 ?

_And now_, thought Harry as he approached the Room of Requirement, which had a 'Quiet: Meeting in Progress' sign hanging from the door handle, _for my daily dose of ritual humiliation_. He wasn't feeling as cocky and subversive as he had yesterday - he suspected that Mr Lardon, if he played his psyche right, might just get to witness a real life manifestation of Harry's 'anger'.

He pushed open the door to find, not Lardon, but Snape. The Professor was standing silhouetted with the lamp behind him and, back-lit, he looked forbidding - taller, blacker and more menacing than ever. Harry felt his insides tear and twist as another several thousand courage cells committed _Hari Kiri_. He should know better by now, but he still felt nervous: he had a finely-honed instinct for self-preservation, and fear was still his first phobic response to an unexpected encounter with his father.

Harry need not have worried about how he was going to cope with spending time with Snape at school - the situation simply had not yet arisen. Hermione had not been exaggerating when she had said the teachers were busy: there were constant staff meetings, and Harry had also seen several parents being guided through the corridors by self-important prefects. That in itself was unusual at this stage of the term. Harry wondered, idly, if there might be some kind of mini-epidemic which the teachers were trying to hush up - he had noticed several empty seats at the tables in Hall at lunchtime. But surely it would be irresponsible not to inform all the students, or evacuate them or confine them to quarantine. No, there had to be another explanation. Whatever it was, he had not had a chance to see Snape alone - either Dumbledore was with him, or Hermione had been there, or Snape had been otherwise engaged, or else - and Harry strongly suspected this last possibility - Snape was avoiding a solo interview with his son.

Now Snape was holding a letter, tapping it impatiently against his left hand. When he addressed Harry, he curtailed the tapping and let the sharp, folded edge of the envelope slice down onto his palm like the dropping blade of a guillotine.

"Professor Dumbledore has received a communication from the Ministry..." He spoke with the studied, grey impartiality of a judge passing a life sentence. "...which is writing at the behest of the Chairman of the Muggle Association of Psychotherapists, which is acting on behalf of one of their members, a Mr Algenon Lardon, who will, they regret to inform us, be unable to fulfil his commitment to the WHIIMP programme, owing to absence resulting from occupational stress..."

Snape stopped and drilled the full, penetrating force of his dark eyes into the young defendant in the dock before him. Then he flashed Harry a rare, and very precious, smile.

"Good work, Harry! Nicely done!"

It was the best thing that had happened to Harry all day.

X X X

In all his six years at Hogwarts, Harry had never been in the Ravenclaw Common room. If he hadn't known differently, he might have mistaken it for a library. The room was a blue honeycomb of study alcoves, partitioned off from each other by chest-high wooden screens, each cell inhabited by a diligent drone, busy with homework. The air hummed with application. Hermione would have been in her element.

"I'm looking for Luna."

Without lifting his eyes from the pages of _'The Golden Proportion: Sacred Geometry and Nature's Blue-print'_, Michael Corner gestured behind him with his thumb and said,

"In the bin."

Harry initially wondered if this were some recondite Ravenclaw password, but then caught sight of a hand-written sign tacked onto a bead curtain which screened-off a far corner of the room: '_Loony Bin'_. Evidently Ron was not the only one who used this nickname.

The shapeless red garment that Remus had handed to Harry had, for three days, lain forgotten and unclaimed under a pile of Harry's unused Quidditch robes. He had an inkling to whom it belonged, but it was only when he actually fished it out and checked the labels for a name tag that his suspicions were confirmed. There was no name as such, but the manufacturers' logo - a kind of deer embossed over the unmistakable yellow cross and blue ground of the Swedish flag - was a dead giveaway.

The bamboo curtain swayed and clicked and clattered as Harry pushed through it, narrowly avoiding the feathered noose of a dream-catcher suspended a little too low from the ceiling. Luna was sitting cross-legged on the floor rearranging a pile of small stones.

"Hello Harry. Glogg?"

Thinking she was addressing a house elf, or somebody behind him, Harry deftly side-stepped, knocking his head on some wind-chimes which set up a tinny jangling, too close to his ear for comfort. He realised that she was offering him an earthenware beaker.

"It's Glogg. It's a Swedish drink made of red wine and brandy and flavoured with orange peel, almonds and raisins. I'm afraid I haven't got any wine or brandy, but it still tastes nice, don't you think?"

Harry made a polite "Mmm." The 'bin' was a triangular oasis of spiritual mysticism in the desert of Ravenclaw rationality. The two walls, meeting at the apex, were shelved from floor to ceiling. On the bowing shelves, candles, crystals and shells stood side by side with glass pebbles, pine cones and a selection of incense sticks. One shelf groaned with receptacles: a scrying bowl, goblets, a tiny cauldron, glass jars, miniature coloured tubes, bowls and plates. On another queued rows of bottles containing herbs, oils, dried berries, seeds, salts and powders. A tattered corn dolly jostled for space with a forked hazel dowsing rod, a star-shaped mirror, a 'Tom-tom' drum, and a set of rusty horseshoes, with acorns and stones in various shades of purple and blue wedged in the crannies in between. There was a crystal ball, two censers, charcoal discs, a silver amulet, a small spinning wheel, a compass and a stack of sheets of white paper. There was no wall space, but taped on the ceiling was a star chart, a diagram depicting the phases of the moon and several pictures of owls. The air wheezed with the scents of sandalwood and patchouli.

"Look here. Is this yours?" Harry asked, thrusting the tunic forwards, anxious to establish that he had a reason for his visit, that it was not a social call. It would be difficult enough to live it down as it was. The viral news that Potter had been chatting up Lovegood would soon be spreading like a plague, its gossipy blue buboes popping up in infected conversations all round the school.

"I was wondering when that would turn up," she answered vaguely, not questioning where it had been or how it came to be in Harry's possession. "I got it in Sweden in the summer. It's the traditional costume of the peasants of Dalarna - that's up in the north, you know."

She stood up and held the scarlet sack against her.

"Picturesque, isn't it?"

Harry agreed that that was one word for it.

"We had three days in Stockholm, then we went up to Lapland. We actually flew in a Muggle aeroplane - that is such a strange experience. Have you ever? No? You feel completely vulnerable; everything is out of your control. Not like on a broomstick."

More like a Thestral, thought Harry with a wry smile.

"Reindeers pee on the snow and then eat it. Did you know that?" Luna asked, startling Harry with the abruptness of the question and its subject matter. "They grub up some plant or fungus that gets them stoned when they eat it - and it's like, hello! I'm a reindeer! I can fly...! - and whatever drug it is passes straight through, so if they eat their pee they can start tripping all over again. You wouldn't think they were brainy enough to work that out. That's where the story about Santa's flying reindeer all started."

"Can they talk as well then?" asked Harry, getting drawn in, in spite if himself. "I mean, how do people know that the reindeer _think_ they're flying? They don't actually do it, after all."

"Who knows. Maybe they do," she said mysteriously, open to the possibility of flying or talking reindeer, or both. "My Dad's researching an article for the bumper Christmas Special issue of _The Quibbler_ - all about how the Santa Claus myth evolved out of pagan traditions. For instance, did you know that in winter the only way to get into a Siberian yurt is through the chimney?"

Harry had never seriously considered the problem.

"And of course, all the herder tribes use reindeer sleighs for transport..."

There was a pause while she topped up their Glogg. Harry was beginning to wish that the tunic had belonged to Ginny or Padma or even Milicent Bulstrode - anybody sane.

"Hey! I bought a great knife - do you want to see it? Hand-made by the Lapps. And I got that wooden drum - the one on the shelf over there. I had a hand-carved spoon too, but I've lost it. It'll turn up sooner or later."

She rummaged in a cardboard box, pulling out a pack of cards, a clay chalice, several pieces of rope, a large, round, wooden platter and, eventually, an attractive, bone-handled knife, its pommel intricately carved.

"The signs represent the original Norse gods," she explained, turning the blade over reverentially. "That one's Odin, and the others are Thor and Frey. It'll make a great _athame_, don't you think?"

"A what?"

"For channelling energy. I used to have a really nice black-handled dagger, but that disappeared too."

Harry eyed her dubiously. Were _all_ girls walking encyclopaedias of useless information? At least Hermione's knowledge was occasionally relevant, whereas Luna's selection of oddball trivia was just, to use one of Uncle Vernon's phrases, 'downright doo-lally'.

"Luna, I came to ask you something." Harry tried again.

"About Lapland?" She had folded herself down onto the floor once more and was packing away her stones into a small, soft, brown leather pouch. She held it out to him,

"Take three. Any three," she instructed, as though offering a bag of _Giggling Gobstoppers_, "but think about the question as you choose them."

Confused and exasperated, Harry exclaimed:  
"Luna! I can't think about anything else! It's driving me crazy. I want to know what you meant - what you mean. I keep thinking about the stupid question, but I don't know the answer. **I don't know** what I really want."

"Yes you do," she said in a quiet, no-nonsense way. "Now, put the rune stones down on this hankie - here, and here and here..." She leaned forward, her long hair falling as a lank, blond veil across her face. One by one she picked up the shiny, black stones, examining the angular, scratched markings, chanting to herself, "Hagalaz, Raido, Dagaz...", inviting the names to yield up their symbolic, ancient secrets.

To Harry it was all meaningless mumbo-jumbo - for all he knew or cared the words could have been early Norse, Swedish or _demotic reindeer_.

"Well?" he asked.

"The fields of meaning are fluid and individual," she said, obscurely. "It's good. These are good, propitious. It's a good time to do it."

"TO DO **WHAT**?" Harry was so infuriated he felt like strangling her. _Perhaps someone already has - that's why her eyes stick out_, he thought.

"You tell me..." she said serenely.

It was ridiculous. Harry wanted so many things. He wanted to be allowed to play Quidditch. He wanted to get Os in all his NEWTs or, failing that, at least to scrape an Acceptable in his Charms test. He wanted Ron to stop being such a miserable gimp. He wanted Snape to stop being such an uptight bastard. He wanted to be able to 'connect' with someone. He wanted to ... No, that was impossible.

Luna was watching him with an expression of mild interest.

"Go on, say it," she encouraged him, waving her hands as though to _waft_ a confession from him. "Verbalising the thought actualises its potentiality."

Harry agonised.

"I want to talk to Sirius," Harry said at last, "but he's dead."

"The Stubby Boardman guy?" Luna was unphased by minor technicalities such as life or death. "So, Harry, the next question is, do _you_ go to meet _him_, or do you get _him_ to come to _you_?"

**END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: MILKING THE RUNESPOOR. Hermione expresses her doubts about Luna... And we get a flashback... to the end of that week at Snape Cottage... (Well, in 'Snape's Confession' I only managed to describe the first few days before the anxst got to me...)**

18


	8. Milking The Runespoor

**Author's note: If anyone thinks there's _'slash'_ in this chapter, I prefer to call it _harmless innuendo_ (and, probably, the shameless reinforcing of stereotypes.)**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 8 : MILKING THE RUNESPOOR**

"A séance?"

Nearly-headless Nick was, for a moment, nearly speechless too. Then he pulled himself together, paying special attention to the collar zone, and surveyed Harry sorrowfully.

"I would not recommend it, my dear boy. In fact, my advice to you would be to eschew it at all costs. I thought we had covered the subject once before, and I did try to make you understand that your friend will have _moved on_. He may not wish to be summoned back."

"_Summoned_?" Harry was surprised to hear Nick use that term. He had thought of it as more of a voluntary visit.

"Oh yes," the ghost continued, "it's rather like being called to the headmaster's office - you feel obliged to go, but it may not necessarily be your heart's desire. Or like when you receive an urgent owl when you are watching a particularly enthralling tilt in a jousting tournament. He may not wish to answer the call.

"No, abandon the séance idea, young man. It's a clumsy Muggle means of dabbling in spheres of which they know nothing."

After the bizarre chat with Luna, Harry had been unable to put her suggestion out of his mind. That night he had lain awake, counting through a rosary of temptation, doubt, disbelief, fear and longing. It was well after midnight when he got up and sneaked out, defying the castle curfew to seek expert advice.

They made an unusual couple as they proceeded together down the stairs. The ghost drifted, pearly and translucent, emitting a cool, silvery light which gave Harry's bobbing hair a slicked, wet-look sheen. The rest of Harry was hidden under his Invisibility Cloak - he'd kept it on for warmth as much as concealment. Though insubstantial, it was still one more protective layer to ward off the freezing cold of the night-time corridor, exacerbated by the icy waft of Sir Nicholas's unintentional ectoplasmic chill.

"Ouija is a very imprecise form of communication, Harry. Very difficult to say anything worth saying, what with all the interference from human hubbub - like trying to have a cosy chat when the minstrels are in mid-Madrigal, eh what? And all that cup-moving and spelling-out words - most frustrating. Co-ordination can become pretty poor when one has lost touch with the tangible realm. Imagine trying to excavate a nasal cavity while still wearing your hunting gauntletsâ€ It's a bit like that. Or indeed, trying to execute a bow with elegance and aplomb while maintaining one's head in a conventionally upright position" He sighed a ghostly sigh, and Harry felt a draught of frosty air brush his cheek.

"Are you saying that I **won't** be able to talk to Sirius?" Harry asked despondently, the fire-fly of hope, winking enticingly in the darkness, having just been demolished by a predatory bat.

"Did I say that, dear boy?" Nick's voice faded into nothing as he drifted through a marble column and disappeared into the masonry.

X X X

"A séance?" exclaimed Hermione. "Has Luna put you up to this? Harry, she's a total whacko! You should stick to conventional magic - don't get involved in all that fringe stuff. Trelawney's bad enough with her tea-bags and dream oracles, but Luna's a hundred times worse. Have you seen the way she gets that vacant expression and gazes at the sky - she says it's Auspicy, but sometimes there isn't a bird in sight. I reckon she's just staring into space. She hasn't got you mucking about with sacrificial entrails or anything, has she? Or advised you to rearrange your furniture to avoid Geopathic Stress lines? I suppose she's told you all that rubbish about Father Christmas wearing red and white robes because the colours resemble some kind of hallucinogenic mushroom?"

"No, but she did say that the Runes were propitious" Harry found it virtually impossible to get a word in once Hermione had launched a tirade.

"Runes! Oh, Harry, she's not been doing her 'riding the wagon' thing for you, has she? If you wanted to know about runes, why didn't you come to me? I did get an O in my Study of Ancient Runes OWL, you know. What do you want to know?" She paused, almost visibly accessing her database. "Runes are based on the early German alphabet; the name comes from the German 'raunen' meaning 'to whisper'; there are twenty-four signs, divided into three families, or aettir, of eight symbols eachâ€ See? I bet I know more about runes than Loopy-Luna!" Hermione was confidently dismissive.

"Yes, but she **_believes_** it," said Harry. Hermione gasped as though he had just hexed her.

"Fine!" she said. "If you're daft enough to think that Santa Claus is some souped-up Swedish shaman, then go ahead! In fact, why are you walking down to breakfast with me at all? Shouldn't you be with Lovegood?"

"Hermione! You're jealous!"

Those pesky plague rats had been spreading their romantic propaganda. The idea was so preposterous that Harry almost laughed out loud. Hermione gave a disdainful toss of her head.

"Jealous? Of that batty, bug-eyed bird-brain? Should I be? Harry, can't you see that I'm worried about you? I'm the one who's been sticking up for you all this time while Malfoy's been slagging you off. And, honestly, I don't know why I bother. If you'd rather hang out with Luna" She faced him reproachfully.

"Can't you see she's just taking advantage of you? Playing on your insecurities to fit in with her crackpot spiritual theories? Has she shown you any proof? She's making it all up. There's no evidence that a séance is anything other than sleight of hand and a load of clever mental manipulation."

It was quite a speech. Hermione's cheeks were flushed and she was slightly out of breath, but she hadn't finished yet.

"And why _now_? Why are you so desperate to see Sirius all of a sudden? You've hardly mentioned him for weeks, and then all this stuff happens with Voldemort and Snape, and all at once it's imperative that you talk to Sirius. What's changed? What happened last week? Harry, Sirius is dead. And anyway, you've got Snape now. He wouldn't want you dabbling with Luna's Muggle-magic and trying to contact Sirius - he hated him, didn't he? He wouldn't want you getting mixed-up with ghosts."

A flare of distress flickered in Harry's already troubled eyes.

"What is it, Harry? Did you and Snape have a row about Sirius? You've got to try and get over him, Harry; he's gone. Snape's your father now."

"Yes, but Snape's..." Harry scraped around for an acceptable description.

"Snape's **what**? What is he, Harry?" Hermione pounced like Crookshanks catching a vole. "You've barely said a word about him. Every time anyone asks you about last week you start talking about lizards or sea-snakes or poisonous mushrooms, but everything else is off-limits. Either you've discovered the formula for the Philosopher's Stone and you're determined to keep it to yourself, or else you're guarding some other secret you don't want to tell us.

"You've been weird ever since you got back to school. We're all bending over backwards to be understanding, but you make it terribly difficult. You've fallen out with Malfoy, you've upset Remus, the rest of the staff are treating you like you're contagious, and now Ron's not speaking to you either. You've hardly seen Snape, and the one time you did, you said something that made him chuck a mental. Are you avoiding him, Harry? What happened last week?"

"I can't say."

"He hasn't put you under _Imperius_, has he?" A cloud of doubt, edged with apprehension, scudded across Hermione's face. She might accept that Snape had several redeeming features, but he was still fundamentally Snape... A Runespoor doesn't change its stripes.

"Did he do something awful? He didn't keep you in a box like Mad-Eye, or make you do sadistic detentions like Umbridge, or use you as a guinea-pig for some dreadful new potions, or...?"

"SHUT UP!" Harry yelled at her. She was as bad as Lupin - automatically assuming the worst. It was hard having a father whom everybody hated.

Harry did want to tell Hermione what had happened that day, but Snape had sworn him to secrecy

X X X

_(Flashback)_

Snape actually had a live Runespoor in the basement menagerie at his cottage. He wouldn't be drawn on the subject of where and how he had obtained it, but claimed that it had been bred in captivity, not illegally imported from its natural home in Burkina Faso.

On that last Saturday at Snape Cottage, he had permitted Harry to help him with the monthly milking of venom - a task he usually performed with the assistance of Quig. Two people were essential for this operation because of the Runespoor's three heads, each of which could inflict a vicious bite, although only one possessed the venomous fangs. Although nervous at the prospect of subduing an angry, seven-foot long African snake, Harry was also excited: this was a rare privilege - he doubted if even Hagrid had ever milked a Runespoor - and the idea of working along Snape mashed his insides to a purée of panic and pride.

Whereas the Potions laboratory had been clinically cool (downright perishing, truth be told, thought Harry, remembering how his hands had gone numb while he was stirring the Dreamless Sleep he had brewed for Snape), the tropical humidity of the live specimen room enveloped Harry in its steamy fug the minute he opened the door.

"I adjust the conditions in each cage to replicate more closely the habitats of each individual species," Snape told him. "I believe the Muggles are able to achieve a similar effect with thermostatic controls. In general the reptiles require a certain degree of warmth in order to maintain optimum bodily function - heat is, for instance, essential to activate the digestive process in many snakes. Today the settings are lower than normal to slow down their reactions - it facilitates the milking."

He took Harry round the room, pointing out the occupants of the various cages, tanks, aquaria and vivaria. A sleepy Pit Viper waved its rattle lazily at Harry as he passed. A Gila Monster and a Mexican Bearded lizard in adjacent cages were engaged in deep debate about vestigial limbs and the rate of tail re-growth - Harry couldn't catch many of the words: he had only a smattering of lizard language, and anyway, they did seem to be speaking in a reptilio-Spanish patois. Two Poison Dart frogs blinked beadily, each trying to outshine the other in deterrent acrylic brilliance. A writhing tangle of silvery green Mokes shrank and hid under a water pot. A white Salamander was dancing in and out of a jet of flame which flared intermittently in the centre of its cage like a fiery geyser, its scales turning alternately blue and scarlet in the variable heat.

"Is it all reptiles and amphibians?" asked Harry.

"Not at all. There are Arachnids in that part of the laboratory," Snape indicated, "Insects over there, and Mammals - though, of course, there are very few truly venomous mammals. The saliva of the short-tailed shrew does contain a nerve poison which can kill in seconds. Most of the other mammals here fall into the category of 'Nutrition and Dietetics'."

Harry glanced at several cages and incubators containing day-old chicks, white mice, pink baby rats and a number of small voles and shrews, and he shuddered at the implication. The pair of Gruber weasels was out of sight, still asleep, hidden deep inside the hollow log that was once again their home. Their shelf held several non-poisonous creatures: a golden Marmoset, a fluffy, speckled Kneazle kitten, a Clabbert hanging upside-down from a branch, holding a half-eaten sparrow chick in its webbed foot; and in the last cage something brown and furry that might have been a Kinkajou, but had no intention of getting out of its leafy nest for Harry to find out.

While Snape prepared the equipment, Harry browsed his way back to the reptiles. He couldn't help tuning-in to snatches of snakey chit-chat as he passed the cages:

"...so I says to 'im, I says, 'Basking's wot you need, my lad - a good bask on a hot stone. That'll put that kink right in no time"

"...no, wait for it: he goes 'Skunk? I thought you said 'skink'!' Geddit? Skink – skunk ? Sssss!"

"...bit taters today; could do with a nice, warm weasel..." ¹

"...rheumatics in me trunk vertebra; slows me slither somethin' chronic..."

The Runespoor was kept in a very large, environmentally regulated glass tank at the end of the basement. The creature was at least six feet long, as thick as a man's arm and zingy orange with black diagonal stripes. The single tail divided two thirds of the way along its length into three separate and singularly argumentative heads. They seemed to be quite distinct characters: two of them were decidedly unhappy at the approach of Harry and Snape. The third head, the central one, took an alternative viewpoint.

"Oooh! Look dears, he's brought a new boy with him! Wonder what's happened to darling crinkle-cut Quigley? Quite a young one this time too - aah, bless! Perhaps he'll be my Serpent in Shining Scales - come to take me away from all this!" He gave a histrionic sigh and wove his head from side to side in a sinuous, undulating swing.

"Be quiet, Hulmin, we all know why they're here. It's that time of the month again," hissed the right-hand head, irritably.

"Sssss! I'll stick with Snapey then," simpered the central head, Hulmin. He sashayed forwards with a seductive shimmy. "He can milk my venom any time. So firm and masterful!"

Harry just loved this!

"It's all very well for you," scolded the right-hand head, whose name seemed to be Nak. "You're not the one who's going to have his face shoved into a jam jar and his cheeks massaged."

"Don't I wish! Some pythons get all the perks. Now, don't get your fangs in a frazzle, Nak dearie, only teasing"

"If you two could both stop bickering, and concentrate." The left-hand head spoke for the first time, bossy and officious. "I propose we adopt Anti-Venom Extraction Plan A."

"That works for me, luv," smooched Hulmin, flickering his tongue over his lips.

"You don't know what Plan A is yet," criticised Nak, sucking in his venom sacs protectively. "Stop coiling about like a camp King Cobra, and pay attention to Szam."

Szam drew himself stiffly upright to brief the troops:

"Right. Nak, you will have to resist Snape, as you will be his primary target. Be debilitating but not deadly. Hulmin, you go for the eyes..."

"Sssss! I always do, sweetie - so smouldering and sexy!"

"You will _attack_ the eyes of both humans," corrected Szam, "while I will mount a defence against the smaller of the two. Tail-guard action will take the form of a strangling manoeuvre - that will require your full co-operation and co-ordination"

Harry was still delighting in the wild idea of relaying this conversation to Snape, when the Potions master joined him in front of the tank.

"Attempt to immobilise the left-hand and central heads, Harry. I will subdue the tail for the duration of the milking. Be slow and circumspect in your movements," he advised. "The creature can be aggressive - to itself and to what it perceives as an external threat."

"Oh, it's just a family squabble. They won't harm each other, or us, much," said Harry. "And Hulmin certainly won't harm you!" He could hardly keep a straight face. Hurrying on before Snape could press him for details, Harry explained:

"The Runespoor's combined name is Szahuna, but if you want to address the individual heads, they are called Szam, Hulmin and Nak, going from left to right. They're ready to put up a decent fight, but they won't do anything lethal.

"Wouldn't it be easier if I just had a word with them and asked Nak to spit into your collecting pot?"

Snape was put out - not smouldering, but extinguished. At one time such casual confidence on Harry's part would have earned him an instant detention and the cutting edge of Snape's sarcasm. Now, however, Snape found himself in unmapped and hazardous territory: how to embrace Harry's talent, and not resent it; how to react to this blatant criticism of his methods - whether or not to adopt Harry's suggestion and, if he did, how to accept it _graciously_.

Harry was aware of Snape's appraising look - a mixture of surprise, annoyance and, possibly, approval.

"I had overlooked your powers as a Parselmouth," Snape said in a forcedly neutral tone. "You may address the Runespoor."

"Hello guys!" Harry stepped forwards; three orange, stripy heads shot up.

"Good grief! It speaks! Code Red, everybody!" Szam ordered.

"Have we been introduced?" queried Nak.

"S-serendipitouss! Oooh, sling me in a sack and call me Susan!"

xxx

"They want to negotiate," Harry reported back to Snape. "Or Szam does. Nak wants to take legal advice about drafting a binding contract, and Hulmin just wants you to wipe his scales down with a damp cloth... Nak will supply a monthly venom sample in return for the following conditions:  
- frogs to be served not more than twice weekly, with a live rat each on Sundays.

- unlimited access to an outdoor cage with built-in basking deck and running water feature.

- you must get rid of the Mongoose."

xxx

And afterwards, in the kitchen, in the mutual satisfaction of having a job well done, without injury to either themselves or the beast, the atmosphere had bordered on _companionable_. Harry kept wanting to pinch himself.

"We made a good team!" Harry cast out the comment without thinking and immediately began winding frantically to reel it in again - with Snape, even the most innocent fly could hook a piranha: you could be paddling in a puddle and step on a Stone-fish; shrimping and scoop up a Grindylow in your net.

"Your Parsel abilities are a considerable asset," commented Snape. He made it sound more like a practical assessment than a compliment, but Harry glowed anyway. _This was how it could be; this they could build on_.

He refused to join Snape in a celebratory glass of Absinthe, but watched in fascination as the Potions master mixed 'la fée verte' in the traditional way, slowly pouring iced water over a sugar cube on a perforated spoon, into a glass containing a shot of the pale green spirit. The scent of herbs and aniseed masked the more bitter, sinister aroma of wormwood. As the liquid turned cloudy, Snape raised his glass to Harry,

"Santé!" he said.

X X X

So why, in the name of all that was magic, had Harry gone and spoilt everything? Was he really cursed? Did he have a death wish? Or was he just a fool, an immature, arrogant, self-opinionated, disobedient fool? In the days that followed he asked himself these questions repeatedly. How could one of the best days of his life turn into one of the worst?

Snape had insisted on preparing Remus' Wolfsbane potion unassisted. The mixture could be unstable in the early stages, he said; he was experienced at gauging the volatility, whereas Harry might misjudge the levels and jeopardise the entire brew; Harry would find the long and complicated process too arduous... Harry could tell that these reasons, however valid, were also excuses. Snape wanted to be alone. With Harry's continued presence he had reached his social saturation point. He _needed_ to be alone.

Harry decided to go for a walk. As a precaution, he approached Snape for permission and a topping-up of the anti-biting spell.

"_Morsum repello_," Snape obliged, laying aside his pestle and mortar in which he was pulverising a yellowish object that looked suspiciously like a caried, molar tooth. Was it Harry's imagination, or did his hand rest slightly longer on Harry's head than it had the first time he had cast that spell?

"Is it necessary for me to repeat the rules? You are aware which areas of the estate are out of bounds?" he asked.

"Absolutely, Sir."

"Very well. You may go. _Sois prudent_!"

If Snape breathed an audible sigh of relief at the boy's departure, Harry did not, this time, take it personally. Harry felt buoyed by the whole experience of that morning. He had trudged happily out into the insipid afternoon and even the ailing, invalid October sun seemed to recover its strength and shine for a golden hour. Somehow he found himself retracing the steps of his first walk with Snape: through the garden and up the hill to the plateau with the view across the valley.

For the second time that week, Harry gazed down at the distant gables, towers and chimneys of his ancestral family home - Snape Manor.

**END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: AT SNAPE MANOR. So, what _did_ Snape do that day? Is he guilty or not? Anyone like to hazard a guess?**

¹ Cockney rhyming slang: 'Taters' (potatoes)in the mould cold; 'Weasel' and stoat coat

17


	9. At Snape Manor

**Author's note: Just thought I should mention that, if you haven't read SNAPE'S CONFESSION, this chapter will make no sense whatsoever...**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III :REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 9:AT SNAPE MANOR**

Snape Manor was a large, imposing, red-brick, late Elizabethan manor house. Harry, whose knowledge of the subject was minimal, would have dated it in some architectural dreamtime somewhere between Tudor black and white and Classical Renaissance, but that was as near as he could get. The old, bonded brickwork façade presented three shaped gables, their bay windows topped at first floor level by low balconies. The fading twines of Virginia Creeper and ivy entangled the stone balustrades, the shaggy fringe of their dangling stems flopping across the windows below. The dark panes squinted blankly through, like the dulled and sightless eyes of a dozen dead crows.

At each end of the building there was a square tower, the corners picked out decoratively with pale sandstone quoining, and their lead domes rising to sharp pinnacles that flashed in the weak autumn sunlight. A central stone turret supported an ornamental bell-tower, its rounded cupola standing tall above the ranks of paired brick chimneys.

On the left, towards the back of the house, Harry could make out the shape of the round tower that he had seen from the hilltop, its grey stonework and conical roof slates forming an incongruous contrast of both style and material with the rest of the building.

Harry's conscience had put up a good struggle, but had finally lost the fight and retired, dizzy and bloodied, about half way down the hillside. Snape had not, after all, expressly forbidden him to _look at_ the house.

Family property, to Harry, had never meant anything beyond the confines of No. 4 Privet Drive - an open prison from which he was allowed time out to attend Hogwarts. It was only now occurring to Harry that he too had a stake in the Snape estate, that the stately, abandoned shell before him was a part of his life and his true heritage.

He stopped at the edge of the driveway that divided the overgrown parterre. The untended formal gardens had long since opted for a more casual look: horticultural hobos, dressing-down with each passing season. Harry glanced back over his shoulder at the way he had just come, and in both directions, left and right. There was no one in sight. Then he tramped forwards, heading for the house itself.

At close quarters the signs of neglect were all too apparent. Plantains and thistles pushed up through the cracked flagstones, and in between the greening cobbles, grass and nettles grew in straggly tufts, competing with the sorrels, dandelions and clumps of cushion moss. Nature had stormed the building too: strings of speedwell trailed from leaf-clogged gutters; a cluster of wind-seeded fescues nested in the chimney stacks.

Cautiously, Harry approached the porte cochère. Years without oiling, polish or paint had left the massive, wooden door leeched, the grain coarse and open. The lock, however, was not similarly weathered: the door was firmly shut. Harry had only tried it on the off-chance; up until that point he had no serious thought of going inside. But then he caught the scent of secrets on the breeze and he was drawn on instinctively: a Thestral lured by the smell of fresh blood.

Ropes of rampant ivy and the whippy, leafless cords of Wisteria bound the ground floor windows. Harry dragged aside a twiggy armful and peered through the glass, but he could see nothing. The next window was the same, and the next. He was working his way systematically round the building, with no success. The Manor defied prying eyes; it had closed its curtains on the world.

Walking along the west elevation brought him to the foot of the round tower. Its sheer walls were of a bluish grey dressed stone, not the local sandstone, its windows mere arrow slits. It rose, monumental and aged, like the cylindrical keep from a medieval chateau. A small, solid oak door deep set in the wall at the base of the tower was as tightly shut as everything else. It seemed to Harry, though, that the nettle stems were bent here and there, the thistles bowed aside, as though someone had brushed through them recently on their way to the doorway. He looked more closely and saw a couple of broken grass stalks, a leaf crushed underfoot...

"_Alohamora_!" he tried. Nope. Oh, cut to the chase, he thought, recalling his previous attempts with the door to the laboratory. "_Ouvrez la porte_!" Yep, he heard the bolt slide back - he'd have to tell Snape he was getting predictable. Inside, a spiral staircase wound upwards around the solid central newel. Harry began to mount the stairs.

The tower room was circular, with two recessed windows that each allowed a slice of light to score the gloom. Richly coloured tapestries depicting historical and mythological scenes covered the walls from oak beamed ceiling to boarded floor. Harry did not examine them closely; his attention was transfixed by the shadowy figure standing with her back to him on the far side of the room.

It was a woman, of above average height, slim and elegant in bearing, straight-backed but not stiff; even from behind she had an air of aristocracy: her posture and deportment dignified and proud. Her most striking feature was her hair, which fell in natural ringlets, cascading to her tiny waist in an ebony waterfall, black but with the indigo sheen of a raven's wing. She was gazing through the arrow-slit window, and did not look round when Harry entered, breathing heavily and warm from the climb.

_"Severus? C'est toi? Tu es en retard, mon cher. Tu as mes médicaments?"_ Her voice was low and crooning, smooth but with a hint of huskiness that Harry found hypnotic. Very quickly, however, it slewed into an unexpectedly whining, childlike tone, _"Severus? Mon fils, je t'en prie, donne les moi; j'en ai besoin..."_

Moving with svelte grace she turned to face Harry. In the soft light she was agonisingly beautiful: high cheekbones, well-defined but delicate features, fine arched brows, clear, porcelain skin and dark, dark eyes that flashed just like her son's...

_She thinks I'm Snape. She thinks I'm her son. Oh Merlin! _Harry could well believe that she was still a Veela, even if she was a ghost. A mad, potion-crazed ghost. Seeing Harry, her face transformed, narrowing and sharpening with fury and alarm.

_"Qui êtes vous? Que faites-vous ici? Où est Severus?"_

She took a step towards him, her lips curling away from her perfect teeth in a vicious snarl. Harry wanted to move, to run, but his feet had fused into the floor. He was entranced; he could not take his eyes off that distorted, manic face, twisted with disappointment and dependence.

She was dressed entirely in black but, as he watched, her fitted, peplum jacket, her long, full skirt, her velvet cloak, her hair itself began to crepitate and shimmer with an eerie olive under-glow; arcs of emerald fire sizzled through the beading on the bust, meeting braid and jet buttons in a crackle of shooting turquoise sparks. Ripples of green light washed over her in scalding waves of teal and jade and celadon until her whole body was ablaze with liquid flame.

"_Aie! Je meure! Sauvez-moi! Ca brûle! Ce cochon-là me brûle_!" she screeched, clawing at her clothing in terror. Whirling round in a frenzy of pain, with a wailing scream she extended both arms out wide, brought them up above her head and then straight in front of her, out-stretched, all ten fingers splayed and rigid, pointing directly at Harry.

"_Laissez-moi tranquille_! _Avada Kadavra_!" she shrieked.

The curse ripped from her body in ten focussed beams of lethal energy, hitting Harry like bullets of lime green light, fired at point blank range.

X X X

He was floating in a sea, in a dream, in space, in a hazy almond mist... floating in a world without light or dark, without sensation, without pain; in a place without form, a void without dimension, infinity... Floating, drifting, turning, tumbling, rotating... weightless, directionless, without purpose or intent; floating in emptiness, without grief or sorrow, joy or love... floating in eternity, divorced from linear time; floating in a vacuum of absence...

There was a voice. A voice that he might have heard before or since, in another lifetime; a voice that mouthed words without meaning: low, distorted thunder rumbles of sound, warping into shrill cartoon babble; a voice that fiddled with the dial of awareness to find a frequency in the endless flux of non-existence.

A voice that shifted focus, now far away, so far, and now inside him, speaking from within, in his ears, and then away again from the farthest, immeasurable distance. A voice he recognised, at last, as sound and sense came together in a verbal pattern, emerging from the chaos of white noise and nothingness.

"**Go back, Harry. Go back. It is not time yet. Now is not your time.**

**I must take you back."**

It was like an old, blunt, underpowered Portkey, wrenching him from that place behind his navel, pulling back and back and back... ...until he knew he was lying on something solid and cold, something tangible and real.

He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe - he felt as though he had the deadweight of ten Crookshanks pressing on his chest with their paws kneading his windpipe - he couldn't speak; he couldn't see. He was paralysed in a suffocating, pea-soup fog that muffled his hearing, blindfolded his vision...

Harry could hear voices. A maudlin, petulant, girlish whine that froze his blood and, later - how much later? Time had lost all meaning - another, male voice, raised in anger, racked with anguish.

_"Bon Dieu! Qu' est ce qui se passe? Que fais-tu, Maman? Tu es complètement folle? C'est mon fils là! Tu as tué mon fils! Tu as perdu le raison? Tu dérailles? Merde! Non! Tais-toi! Va t'en! Va t'en, Maman!"_

Harry felt a gentle pressure on his neck as Snape felt for a pulse. He wanted to smile and tell him, 'It's alright. I'm OK, just winded', but his lips would not respond. His eyes were straining to see but the lids remained closed.

Something warm and soft was being draped over him - something that smelled reassuringly of anise and wormwood, smoky and sour, herbal and musky: Snape's cloak. Snape tucked it carefully round the boy and took his hand, re-checking the wrist for the faint pulse, the only sign of life.

"_Harry! Non! Pas toi aussi, fiston," he whispered. "Ne me quitte pas, mon gars. Pas maintenant. Je n'aurais pas pu supporter de te perdre..._"

The words themselves made no sense to Harry, but he understood the raw pain in Snape's voice. He forced his eyes open, blinking away the fog.

"_Harry? Où est-ce que ça te fait mal_?" Snape bent over him, attentive and anxious. "Where does it hurt?"

"All over. My chest mainly; my shoulders." Harry could breathe now. "She... she used A.K."

Snape nodded as though he had expected as much.

"It is my mother's penance to relive, as it were, the moment of her death. She has learned how to channel the destructive force with a power unusual for one of the spirit world. You took a huge risk in coming here. She is not rational... You should not expose yourself to such dangers."

In the half-light Harry read a chapter of conflicting emotions in Snape's bleak expression. Meeting Harry's eyes, Snape suddenly became aware that he was still crouching beside the supine boy, still holding his hand. Self-consciously brusque, he stood up.

"It is fortunate for you that my mother is dead and therefore, theoretically, unable to cast a lethal curse," he said dryly. Now that the immediate danger was past, his English reserve was regaining control, suppressing the Gallic alter ego. Propriety was replacing passion. Harry could have done with the French Snape for a little longer; he felt wobbly - a hug would not have gone amiss.

"There will be severe bruising, but no internal damage," Snape said, objectively. "Can you get up?"

Harry struggled to roll over onto his side and from there into a sitting position. Every movement was agony; his lungs burned; his chest, blasted by that magical mitrailleuse, ached like one massive contusion. Snape steadied him as he climbed painfully to his feet, but there was no comforting warmth in his touch.

"What in Merlin's name did you think you were doing, Harry? Why did you come here? Here, of all places!" Anger, the understudy of shock and fear, was taking centre stage. "You **knew** the Manor to be out of bounds...Whatever possessed you...? However, we will not discuss this now. _Alors, sortons d'ici_."

The walk back to the cottage was a silent ordeal. Harry could concentrate only on putting one foot in front of the other, fighting down the pains in his chest - the crushing ache of guilt as much as the physical discomfort. He knew he had let Snape down, disobeyed him, disappointed him, forfeited his trust, frightened him into that whispered admission.

Snape matched Harry's pace, walking at his side, supporting him when he flagged, but saying nothing to him; his expression was set, cold and unforgiving.

"_Espèce d'idiot_!" he muttered once under his breath, rebuking _himself_ for his vulnerability.

At the cottage, Snape instructed Harry to sit by the fire while he fetched a phial of Painless Potion. Harry waited, dreading his father's return; he didn't feel well enough to cope with Snape's rage. But Snape's reaction was more hurt than wrathful - and that was far worse.

"How can I ever trust you, Harry, when you ignore my instructions and flout my wishes at every opportunity? You deliberately disobey me! I see that my expectations have been unrealistic. I shall not be repeating that mistake. Now, go to bed. We shall defer discussion of your punishment until the morning."

But in the morning Snape had been gone, and Harry had come down to find that note on the kitchen table.

**END OF CHAPTER. OK, you've read enough of my stuff by now to know that Snape would never have hurt Harry... (Hope it wasn't an anti-climax after all that build-up.)**

**Next Chapter: WAR REPORTS. Back to the main story. The therapist, Draco and Hermione are all causing Harry more grief, and where is Snape when Harry needs him?**

11


	10. WAR Reports

**Author's note: Thanks for the positive feedback on Chapter 9. I hadn't planned to have Snape's mother in the story, but then it seemed to tie in OK... I am trying to limit the French motif though, because if it were a dominant element in Snape's character, it would be noticeable in his everyday life at Hogwarts etc, which, obviously, it isn't. So, I'm saving the alter ego thing for moments of extreme stress... (And there might be a few of those!)**

**To Zachiliam: if you're French, please can you correct my French grammar, if I mess up? **

**We're back to Hogwarts again in this next chapter. Harry's personal crises are one thing, but there is the rest of the wizarding world to consider too... If you remember, Harry and Hermione had been having a chat about the séance etc...**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 10: W. A. R. REPORTS**

There was quite a rumpus going on in the Great Hall. Harry and Hermione could hear the noise even as they came down the main stairway into the vestibule.

"No," Harry was saying, in reply to Hermione's sharp question, "we didn't row about Sirius..." He had decided that it would be sensible to tell Hermione something, even if it meant being economically creative with the truth. "It's just that there was this ghost at the Manor house - "

"What kind of ghost?" Hermione was intrigued.

"Oh, just some batty old hag. But she could be a bit dodgy, apparently, and Snape gave me a solid rollicking for going there alone. And then I heard him..."

"Who?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter."

How could Harry explain to Hermione that, lying unconscious on the floor of the circular tower, he had heard the voice of _Sirius_?

He was saved from having to go into further explanations. As they entered the Hall the entire room fell silent. Then, from the direction of the Slytherin table, someone began a slow hand-clap. Gradually its hostile heart-beat filled the Hall.

"What's going on?" Hermione whispered. "What've you done now?" She could sense the pulsating waves of antagonism curving round her and tuning-in to Harry.

"Just keep walking," he answered grimly.

The red and gold sea of Gryffindors parted at their approach, but it was not a friendly reception. Harry and Hermione endured the 'four-minute warning', watching for the mushroom cloud... And then the hissing began; and the boos and the jeering, and a crude, rhythmic chanting, pumped with primitive aggression like a Zulu battle cry:

"Potty-Potter! Potty-Potter!"

Ting! Ting! The clink of Professor McGonagall's spoon on glass pierced the threatening mob of sound.

"SILENCE! We will have silence at mealtimes, thank you."

She sat down. Harry wondered why she didn't say anything else. He soon found out. A rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet, hurled like a stick thrown for a dog, cart-wheeled through the air and caught him in the small of the back. Another followed, and another, until Harry was cowering in the face of an angry avalanche of newspaper.

"ENOUGH!" McGonagall was on her feet again. "Mr Potter, when you have finished your breakfast, if you would be so good as to join me in the headmaster's office. In the meantime, we shall have no more of this nonsense!"

With a stab of her wand she transfigured the papers into a scandalously misinformed white rabbit, which hopped under the table, where Ginny started to feed it chunks of chopped apple.

Showing her customary presence of mind, Hermione had secreted a copy of the Prophet under her cloak. Under the stony scrutiny of the rest of the table, she laid the paper with its sensational headline in front of Harry.

**IT'S W.A.R. !**

**The death toll in the continued campaign of anti-Muggle atrocities has now reached 147. The latest in the series of attacks against non-Magical persons and property took place yesterday afternoon. A coach party of pensioners on a day trip to the Illuminations was lost in quicksand on the M6, five miles north of Blackpool. Ministry sources confirm that W A R (Wizard Alliance Rebels) have claimed responsibility for the incident.**

**The WAR faction is believed to be a splinter group of disaffected wizards, working in conjunction with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. WAR action is, allegedly, in retaliation against a recent assault on You-Know-Who by The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter.**

"**There is no need for alarm. Every effort is being made to contain this outbreak and safeguard the Muggle population. Muggle calming measures are underway, and memory modification teams are working overtime to mitigate the Muggle backlash. Interactive Muggle-Wizard Initiatives are already proving most successful in the promotion of harmonious Muggle relationships and co-operation," said Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic.**

**Preliminary results from survey company, Independent Muggle Research Bureau, indicate a rise in reports of Satanic and Occult activity and W.I. (Witchcraft Inquisition) membership has shown a three-fold increase over the past seven days."**

A photo of Harry, on his broomstick, grinned out from the page. It must have been taken after Gryffindor had won that cup match last term: in the picture Harry punched the air in triumph and did a neat victory roll in mid-air, before resuming his pose. The rest of the article dealt, in embarrassing detail, with Harry's exposé of Snape, their imprisonment, torture and escape, and dwelt with voyeuristic relish on the 'human interest' Snape-Harry-James triangle.

Harry felt as sick as if he'd swallowed one of Quig's purple mushrooms. His mind was suffused with dark, bleeding images; guilt distending and contracting around him like a giant leech glutted on shame and confusion. He pressed both palms flat against the table-top to stop them shaking. Unable to meet the eyes of his friends, he stared down at the damning paper. Only then did he notice the second story to make the front page.

**PSYCHO - POTTER**

**The Daily prophet can exclusively reveal that Harry Potter (16) has been referred to a medical specialist for psychological evaluation and assessment. A leading Ministry psychologist, known to have been involved with the Potter case, has declined to make an official comment, but has issued the following statement:**

'**Any reports that Harry Potter is psychotic, violent, delusional and a danger to himself and society must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated..."**

Damn Lardon! thought Harry. Damn Fudge! Damn the Ministry! Damn the Daily Prophet! He felt numb, but outraged; trapped inside a pressurised container that had been maliciously tossed onto a bonfire. He didn't know whether to protest in indignation or simply despair - or put on a ranting, hysterical floorshow for his 'fans', foam at the mouth and wait for the wizards in white coats...

Desperately he looked to Snape for support - surely they were in this together - but there was no sign of him at High Table. His seat was empty.

_That is so bloody typical. Where the hell is he when I actually need him? He must have been tipped off about the 'Prophet' and decided to keep well out of it. He might have warned me! When it comes to the crunch, he's only interested in saving his own skin. Selfish bastard!_

Slytherin was jubilant, just about ready to party at Harry's expense on the strength of the article alone. Every moment of Harry's mortification was ambrosia to Malfoy. Harry's gaze sidled in his direction and was rewarded by Draco slyly signing 'success', his raised thumb and forefinger joining in an outstanding 'O'.

Even the Gryffindor's were cold-shouldering him. Friendships were dropping around him like First Years with a box of _Fainting Fudge_.

"Dung-bomb detonates!" Harry commented to Hermione, his one remaining ally, attempting a flippancy he did not feel. But Hermione's eyes were swimming with condemnation and reproach.

"How could you, Harry? How could you do that to him? Deliberately betraying him! Your own father!" she said, looking away, adding the final straw...

Then, when it seemed as though he might just as well give up and transfigure himself into a lettuce for the rabbit to nibble, he felt a heavy, warm, reassuring arm round his shoulders. He turned, expecting and hoping - hoping more sincerely than he cared to admit - to see Snape behind him. It was Professor Lupin.

"I'll walk with you to Professor Dumbledore's office, Harry," he said.

X X X

"Every body hates me," said Harry.

"Not true, Harry old boy, not true." Remus' presence had got them into the corridor unscathed, bar some minor jostling and the occasional anonymous hiss. "They shouldn't believe everything they read in the papers. This news has got them all fired up now, but they'll calm down. They'll realise soon enough that they can't blame you for everything."

"Even if it's true?"

"It's the interpretation you put on the facts, Harry. That article was totally one-sided. When they've heard your side of the story..."

"I'm not doing another flaming interview with Rita Skeeter!" Harry was adamant.

"No, I hope it doesn't come to that. Professor McGonagall was going to address the school and set them straight on a few details. You can't be held responsible for You-Know-Who's every move. And as for the rest of it, well, they'll get used to the idea about you and Professor Snape. By the weekend they'll have forgotten all about it - they'll be too busy planning their costumes for the Halloween Ball and buzzing off to Hogsmeade."

"But that's this weekend, Remus. They won't forget all this by tomorrow."

"Maybe not, Harry my lad. But the principle holds good. Give 'em time. It's not always easy adjusting your perceptions of people..." Remus spoke with feeling; Harry could tell that he was talking about James rather than Snape.

"Have _you_ got used to the idea, Remus?" he asked, quietly.

"About Severus? Can't say that I like it, Harry, to be perfectly honest with you. But, from what I've seen this week, he's prepared to do the honourable thing. I had a little chat with him, you know..."

"Yeah, he said." Harry was entertained by the discrepancy between Remus' version of events and his father's.

"It seems I have been wrong about a lot of people," Remus went on sadly. "Makes me think I must have been a hopelessly poor judge of character in my youth - Peter, Sirius, maligning him for all those years; Snape and now James. How could I have been so blind? Maybe even Lily too..."

"What do you mean? What else do you know about her?" Harry was fiercely defensive.

"Nothing, my boy. Nothing. But looking back it now seems as though everybody else was playing by a completely different set of rules. Who knows what your dear mother was thinking at the time. Women tend to see things from a different perspective."

"You're telling me!" Harry was suddenly reminded of Hermione's reaction to the Daily Prophet's article. "Even Hermione's gone and put the boot in. She's started sticking up for Snape. She's... actually, she's a bit weird about him; it's sick," he confided, glad to get it off his chest.

Remus received this information with a little bark of amusement.

"I think you'll find it's called 'empathy', Harry. She's seeing the situation from his point of view and, you must admit, you've given him a pretty hard time over the last few weeks. _Empathy_. It's not one of your strong points. As for anything else, I don't think you need to worry on that score: Severus is far too ethical. And he values his job. Well, well! Oh, there's Filch. Excuse me for a minute, Harry. I must have a word with him about the Howlers."

Professor Lupin, still chuckling, hurried after the caretaker who was disappearing into a broom-cupboard at the end of the hallway. Left alone in the corridor, Harry suddenly felt vulnerable, especially when he looked behind him and saw a gang of Slytherins tailing him at a distance, lions stalking a wounded wildebeest cut off from the safety of the herd. Malfoy, as the dominant male, lead the pride.

"What's this then, Potter - 'Care in the Community'?" he sniped as his opening gambit. Then, turning with a smirk to his cronies, "Careful, chaps, he may be dangerous. These psychos can be unpredictable. He may bite!" In a saccharine, patronising voice he got his claws into Harry, "How are we today, Potty? Paranoid, Schizoid or merely psychopathic? Oedipus Complex playing up, is it? Or didn't you realise that, once you've murdered your father you're supposed to marry your mother? Lost the plot somewhere down the line there, didn't you?

"But you can't help it - poor chap! 'Genetically challenged'..." Malfoy added in a stage-whisper for the benefit of the gang. "Criminality runs in the family, I gather. Dear me. If you must swim in a contaminated gene pool, it's hardly surprising that you pick up the odd bug or two... Let me see now - ah, yes, a _father_ – pillar of the community type, ha ha – who turns out to be a fraudulent maniac, obsessed with revenge; **_another_** _father_ - seems you can't have too much of a bad thing, Potter – who is not only a traitor and an assassin but also, we are reliably informed, a rapist to boot! Quite a stack of skeletons in the Snape family cupboard, eh? And never satisfactorily brought to justice, I hear. Tut-tut - something should be done about that...

"Let me see now, where was I? Criminality by association too: a _godfather_, a murdering coward by the way, who, when he wasn't in prison, sneaked about like the cur he was, disguised as a mangy mongrel, and who could only escape what he had coming to him, by jumping through the Archway... And a mother who was, by all accounts, no better than she should have been... whoa! Watchit, Potter!"

Harry had made a lunge for Draco's neck, but three Slytherin steaks stepped between them, a wall of flesh. Just then, Lupin re-appeared, and the pride dropped back. Draco got in one final swipe,

"And how is Professor Snape today? Do give him my regards, when you see him. **_If_** you see him!"

Harry wanted to ask Draco what he meant, but Lupin had grabbed him by the arm and was virtually frog-marching him to Dumbledore's office. It was probably just as well: Harry didn't think his anger would have been particularly manageable in a head to head with Malfoy's offensive mockery.

X X X

For a lump of carved stone, the gargoyle was looking positively apologetic today, decided Harry. He could have sworn that it shrugged sheepishly as he went by. The reason was very soon apparent: Mrs Weasley's voice, screeching like a half-plucked partridge, could be heard through the wall, through the door, down the stairs and half-way along the landing. It was the voice she usually reserved for the twins' most heinous misdemeanours.

_Wow! thought Harry, it was brave of her to be yelling at Dumbledore._

"...and I've said it before - you couldn't safeguard a Horklump in a wormery! As a parent, you make a prize-winning pumpkin!"

_Whew! Positively **heroic** of her to be shouting at Snape..._ But when Harry and Remus entered the round office, neither Snape nor Mrs Weasley was anywhere in sight. There were, however, a few charred curls of red paper floating to the floor.

"Howlers! Most intrusive invention," commented Dumbledore mildly. "Molly's objections can be positively _operatic_ at such close range. Reminiscent of a Fwooper's song, wouldn't you say? Have you ever heard one, my boy? Just as well. Or perhaps she has taken to making her punch out of mulled Mandrakes! Ah, Harry, we have taken the liberty of intercepting any Howlers addressed to you this morning, and there have been, ahem, _several_... But Mr Filch is supposed to be rerouting those addressed to staff to his own office for vetting. How did that one get in? I thought the gargoyle was on duty."

"Sniffle-Snuff," Remus explained. "The owl had a shaker of it attached to his other leg. The gargoyle said he closed his eyes when he sneezed, and the owl shot straight past..."

"Aha! Ingenious." Dumbledore looked pleased rather than annoyed. He tended to view initiative with indulgence. "The inventiveness of those young Weasleys is an ongoing source of edification. I have frequently wondered whether it was a talent inherited from their mother..."

"Her point though, hysteria notwithstanding, is valid." The clipped, refined, Scottish accent of Professor McGonagall entered the conversation. _How had she got there so fast, mused Harry? Didn't Remus say she'd stayed behind in the Hall? _

"For the Prophet to have published that confidential information is nothing short of a scandal. We should have done something to prevent or forestall it. I thought Minister Fudge had agreed to a media blackout?"

"He did, Minerva, he did. And, while it was politically expedient, he stuck to the agreement. Now one can only assume that the interests of the Ministry are better served by offering up a sacrificial scapegoat."

Dumbledore peered meaningfully at Harry.

"But, Albus, can you not insist...?" pressed Professor McGonagall.

"Alas, I have no authority to issue a gagging order - 'freedom of the press' and all that. Though we may have a case against Mr Lardon for breach of patient confidentiality. He has, though, maintained an element of discretion, for which we must be thankful. I'm sure there is more he might have revealed..."

Harry squirmed, thinking of his second session. Dumbledore continued:

"I'm afraid the paper may take similar liberties with yesterday's developments..."

The three Professors exchanged strained glances that Harry felt both concerned and excluded him.

"Wizard Alliance Rebels! What kind of a name is that?" exclaimed Lupin. "I can't believe You-Know-Who has sunk so low - does he really think a snappy set of initials is going to further his cause?"

It seemed to Harry that Remus was steering the conversation away from some submerged rocky hazard. Why had he been brought to Dumbledore's office if they weren't going to talk to him?

"If you ask me," said Professor McGonagall, "it's the Daily Prophet who have coined the name. WAR makes a headline-grabbing acronym - dramatic and emotive. Pure media hype. If it provokes a hysterical reaction, that will merely further the cause of his ridiculous party game – or whatever it is he's playing at."

"Quite so, Minerva. The arbitrary exercise of power is chilling in its very randomness, but effective." Dumbledore was in no hurry to enlighten Harry. "Think what he has achieved so far, at minimal risk to himself: he is spreading dissent amongst the Muggles, destroying relationships of trust that have taken generations to establish, and monopolising the resources of the best Aurors, other ministerial departments and our own Order.

"This kind of threat is unpredictable and uncontainable - I do not think we are meant to understand it. With no discernible pattern to the attacks, we are very much at the mercy of his whim. It is the work of an unsound mind. It is unfortunate that we no longer have access to insider information..."

Again Dumbledore cast his gaze in Harry's direction, and Harry had the familiar feeling that he was up before a judge, awaiting sentence. But he had stood there listening quietly for long enough. He had to ask:

"Professor Dumbledore, Sir, - where is Professor Snape?"

"Quite so, my boy, quite so. A most pertinent question, if I may say so. When did you last see your father, Harry?"

The direction this questioning was taking made Harry nervous. He'd been uneasy ever since he'd heard Mrs Weasley's Howler, thinking that, perhaps, there was more to Snape's non-appearance than avoidance of the students' opprobrium. He thought hard.

"He came to tell me that my therapy sessions had been cancelled," he said, recalling Snape's unexpected relief at the analyst's resignation.

"Ah yes, the loquacious Mr Lardon. A deplorable lack of professional etiquette... Yesterday evening then. And you have not seen him since?"

"No, Sir. Sir? What is this about?"

"And how did he seem?"

"Seem?" Harry didn't know what Dumbledore was getting at.

Professor McGonagall approached Harry and looked at him kindly but intently, searching for clues.

"Was he calm, Mr Potter, irritated, angry? Did he seem upset to you?"

"What's happened? What's going on? Is he ill?"

Harry was frightened now. Something had happened to Snape and they weren't telling him.

"Sit down, Harry - " Professor McGonagall gently took his arm and guided him towards a chair, but Harry shook her hand off sharply.

"I don't want to sit down. I want to know: where is my father?" He surprised even himself at how much he cared.

"There has been an 'incident', Harry." Dumbledore had been absently dividing the ends of his beard into three strands and weaving it into a loose plait. Now he folded his hands in front of him, his face solemn. "An incident involving your family, the Dursleys..."

Harry didn't want to know about the Dursleys; he was frantic to hear about Snape.

Dumbledore continued gravely:  
"The whole family - that is your Aunt, your Uncle and the overweight child - "

"Dudley," Harry muttered automatically, indifferent to any event that might have befallen Dudders. The worse the better.

"- have been attacked. Now, don't distress yourself, my boy; they will survive. They have been taken to a Muggle hospital - one situated near St. Mungo's, just in case magical intervention becomes necessary. They were all, er, poisoned."

To be brutally honest, Harry couldn't give a toss whether they had been poisoned, bludgeoned or eaten alive by Quintapeds.

"But what has this got to do with my father?" he demanded.

"Professor Snape has been arrested for their attempted murder."

**END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: DRACO'S PROMISE. Why would Snape do that? What have Draco and Luna got to do with all this?**

18


	11. Draco's Promise

**Author's note: Lots of review questions about why everybody is doing everything - I think the honest answer is that I have dug a huge hole for myself with this plot and all the characters are scrambling to get out! It's bound to be slightly episodic because I'm working through the characters trying to show how each one reacts differently to Harry, depending on their own personal circumstances... But it does come together in the end! **

**NateP: Hermione is upset cos she's been encouraging Harry to work towards a reconciliation, and she's beginning to think that Snape isn't such an ogre after all, so she feels she's been used when she finds out that Harry had been plotting to kill him.**

**Vanna: Fair point. I'll tweak them. Thanks.**

**Anonymouse: Sorry, but this Snape works for me. He is, sometimes, a pretentious, intellectual pedant! The teachers must know Latin because half the spells and incantations are Latin based. If you don't like the French, ignore it - it's not crucial to the plot!**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 11:DRACO'S PROMISE**

What had Michael Corner meant by 'doing her chicken thing'? In the Ravenclaw Common Room Harry had cut straight across the honeycomb to the far side, but when he pushed through the beaded curtain into the 'Bin', Luna was not there.

"At Hagrid's," Michael had grunted. _What had Ginny ever seen in him?_

Harry was missing lunch, but he didn't care - rather go hungry than face any more slow-clapping condemnation. Anyhow, he had to speak to Luna before she did anything silly.

It was when Dumbledore had been giving him that final pep talk, and he had shoved his hands deep into his pockets so that the staff couldn't see how his fists were clenched in vexation, that he had found the note from Luna. When had she slipped it into his cloak? He'd read it impatiently, his attention still with Dumbledore.

'**Halloween is particularly propitious.**

**All set for tomorrow night, 7pm.'**

Now he was going to tell her to forget it. He'd got more important things to think about than DIY séances.

He could not believe that Snape was being held in custody. 'Why? On what grounds?' he'd wanted to know. How could anyone imagine that he'd get involved in anything so stupid? Whatever for?

"Nobody thinks for one minute that Severus is guilty," Dumbledore had said, attempting to placate the indignant boy. "But the Department of Magical Law Enforcement have to act on the evidence. Bottles of poison were found at Number 4 Privet Drive - bottles taken from Professor Snape's private cupboard."

_It's a frame-up! Anyone could have taken them._

"And he is renowned for his prowess with poisonous potions."

_That proves nothing._

"And he was seen last night entering the house..."

"What?!" This last piece of evidence came as a shock. "It can't have been him. It must have been someone who looked like him. Or someone doing a Polyjuice impersonation..."

Harry was flummoxed. He could not, for one thing, imagine anyone getting close enough to Snape to obtain the necessary strand of hair or DNA specimen, but it had to be a possibility. Any other explanation was unthinkable.

"The witness was adamant that it was Severus. He even spoke to her. Arabella would have no reason to lie."

Mrs Figg had been out calling for her cat, Hieronymus, when she had heard the Apparation pop and seen the unmistakable, dark figure of Snape gliding towards the Dursley's house. He had acknowledged her with a nod and a curt question,

"Mrs Figg, have you seen the Potter boy?"

No, of course she hadn't. Harry had been safe at Hogwarts at the time. Why would Snape think he had gone to visit the Dursleys?

Ministry officials had apprehended him on the scene, the poison bottles still in his hand. It was not conclusive proof of guilt, but it did not look good. He had, they said, the _means_, the _opportunity_ -

"But no _motive_!" cried Harry. "What motive could he possibly have for murdering the Dursleys?"

"We were hoping you might be able to enlighten us, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore.

It didn't make sense. Until that morning and the _Daily Prophet's_ exclusive exposé, only a handful of people were aware that Snape had any connection with Harry, and most of them were members of the Order. No one had any reason to hate Snape enough to frame him. Unless...

Professor Lupin was monitoring his every nuance of expression.

"Have you thought of something, Harry?" he asked keenly.

"No. No, nothing," said Harry.

"Well, be sure to let us know if you do," said the werewolf. "You know you can come and talk to me at any time..."

Ministerial powers entitled the Department to detain Snape in custody on suspicion for a maximum of seventy-two hours, before they had to charge him.

"He will be fine," Dumbledore assured Harry. "It's not as though he hasn't been in prison before. We know his position in the outside world is extremely _precarious_ at the moment, but Kingsley and Tonks will be keeping a watchful eye on him..."

As Harry was about to leave, the old wizard placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and spoke kindly, a trace of amusement softening the tiredness and anxiety in his face:

"Severus was permitted to send one Owl before proceeding to the cell. He asked me to give you a message, young Harry. He wrote: _'Tell my wayward son **not** to indulge in any needless heroics. I do **not** wish to be saved; I do **not** require rescuing. And his Potions assignment still has to be handed in on Monday.' _"

X X X

He met Luna trudging back up the track from Hagrid's hut, on her way home to the castle. She was wearing her 'rag-rug' again but, in honour of Halloween, no doubt, her ear-rings today were miniature pumpkins which flashed every few seconds, each time illuminating a differently carved rictus grin and angular, sliced nose and eyes. She was holding a brown and golden posy of long, slim, flecked feathers, from the tail of a cock-pheasant perhaps, or a cockerel.

"I got your note," Harry said to her, "but I've changed my mind. I don't think it's such a good idea. Things are a bit complicated right now."

"Don't worry about him," she said enigmatically. Was she referring to Sirius? "The Astronomy Tower's probably the best place. No one will look for us there."

She hadn't been listening to him at all. He sighed, wondering how to get through to her.

"What have you been doing at Hagrid's? What's with the feathers?" he asked, giving way to Luna's dreamy impenetrability.

"Alectromancy," she answered, nodding seriously. "You put the rooster in the centre of a circle of grain and, depending on which grains he pecks... Just another form of divination."

Harry viewed the deluded girl with disbelief and scorn, but mostly pity.

"That's complete cobblers, Luna. You must be joking!"

"Yes, I am," she said blandly.

x x x

They plodded up the steep path, treading carefully on the loose stones, still skiddy from the morning frost and the smears of decaying vegetation.

"I've been feeding Hagrid's chickens while he's away." She suddenly flapped the feathers in Harry's face, tickling his cheek. "For Crookshanks," she explained. "He shredded the last lot. It must be fascinating."

Harry assumed that the subject was no longer the cat, but he had missed the turning in the labyrinth of winding tunnels and dead ends that constituted Luna's logic.

"What must?" he responded dutifully.

"Having Professor Snape as a father."

Many adjectives had been hurled at him that day to describe his relationship with Snape; this was the first time anyone had referred to the situation as _fascinating_. Luna continued, without sarcasm,

"I mean, he knows a lot, and he's had a pretty interesting life by the sound of it, and his aura is highly evolved - even if his Chakras are blocked. You get that when your energies are misaligned. Does he have nightmares? Trouble sleeping? Headaches?"

She threw out personal questions like so much grain to the hens.

"Yes. No. I don't know. Luna, what is this?" As always happened when talking to Luna, Harry found himself at sea, floundering. "You knew about him, didn't you? Before you read the article this morning?" he asked.

"I thought there was some connection. He watches you, Harry, and his expression changes. He is very _aware_ of you. As I say, with some auric attunement, energy balancing and Chakra cleansing he could elevate his consciousness to a fine vibrational level. Do you think I should suggest it to him?"

"Not if you want to live. Don't go there. Most people think he's a mean, cold-hearted, sadistic bastard!"

Harry tried to put some jokey distance between himself and the topic of Snape's psychic aura, which was making him feel more than a little uncomfortable. But superficiality slid straight off Luna.

"And that bothers you," she stated. "Because he's not."

"He can be. Sometimes he is. Other times he's OK. Sometimes he even seems to care about me. And then he freaks out - Luna, when it comes to emotions, he's even more screwed-up than I am, but..."

_Why, why, **why** was he telling all this to fruit-loop Luna Lovegood?_

"But you're fond of him anyway? That's OK. You're allowed to be." She was completely non-judgemental.

"Yeah. I suppose I am." Harry admitted it.

x x x

Pausing, she stood with her arms crossed, icy hands thrust under her armpits, shifting her weight from one frozen foot to the other. She glanced back along the path and her body stilled at the sight of a solitary Osprey, late for its winter migration. It circled above the dark lake, hovered, then dived downwards, its feet entering the water with an audible splash. Seconds later it was airborne again, shaking its plumage, a trout in its talons.

"Some people say you can tell a lot by watching the flight of birds," she said, and her voice had a disconnected, far-away quality. "From the direction they're flying in, and the height and how they change course; whether they're in flocks or on their own. In Auspicy it all has a significance..."

_Oh no, here we go again..._

"My Dad's a 'Twitcher'. I go with him sometimes. We watch the birds - record their songs and flight patterns, that sort of stuff. And do you know what the best thing is?" She turned to Harry and her moon-face was full with enthusiasm. "They have no idea how amazing they are!

"So, 7pm tomorrow." Another quantum jump. "It'll be us - you and me - Ginny and Terry, Neville, Ron and Hermione. They all promised."

Harry was not at all convinced that after his reception that morning, any of his friends would want to be in the same room as him, let alone participate in a séance.

"I don't know how you persuaded them. What did you do - say we were going to make contact with Elvis?"

Luna looked up, her features dead-pan.

"But Elvis isn't dead," she said.

X X X

Harry circled the stands like a sheepdog, then stopped, motionless, waiting for the exact moment to split Malfoy from the flock and cut him into the fold. A mid-air collision involving Crabbe and Goyle had left Slytherin without Beaters, so the Friday evening practice was winding up early. Malfoy ambled off the pitch, chatting to Pucey and Warrington, and didn't notice Harry lurking in the shadows.

"_Accio broomstick_!" Draco's recently repaired Firebolt slid backwards out of his grasp and flew to Harry, who leaned on it with calculated disrespect, as though it were some bog-standard staff, challenging Draco to retrieve his prize possession.

"Escaped from the asylum, have we, Potter?" Malfoy sneered, with an attempt at nonchalance. "On guard, lads - this one's 'one powder short of a potion'..."

"Drop it, Draco," Harry said in a silky voice, consciously adopting one of Snape's verbal tropes. "If you want this 'Re-FIT' back in one piece..."

Malfoy got the message.

"It's cool guys. I'll see you in the Changing Rooms. Potter's harmless now, since the lobotomy..."

The team, spoiling for a show-down, headed off, grumbling, short-changed. Once they were out of earshot, Harry rounded on Malfoy, who looked a lot less self-assured now, without his roadies. But, conceded Harry, he did have the nerve to face him; that was one thing about Draco - he did fight his own battles, up to a point.

"So, how did you do it?" Harry demanded, still keeping the chill on his anger. "How did you get him to go there?"

"Bravo, Potter! Figured it out, have you? Been eating Runespoor eggs for breakfast, eh? Isn't that what 'Daddy' uses in his _Perspicacious Potion_? Or have you been getting a little help with the logic - from a rabid Ravenclaw, perhaps...?"

"How did you do it, Draco?" Harry repeated coldly. "Or would you like me to fly this Firebolt to the Whomping Willow and see which one wins... It made kindling out of mine!"

"He had it coming. Anyway, what's your problem? I've done you a favour - three less Muggles in your life! You should be thanking me. As for our dear Professor - I was just finishing what you started. What you pathetically failed to finish on your own. What made you change your mind, Potter? 'Daddy' threaten to disinherit you?"

Disinherit! The word prodded an ants' nest of ideas in Harry's mind.

"Trust you to bring it down to a question of money! You think that's what this is all about - inheritance? We're not all so mercenary, Malfoy."

"_Excuse me_, but I was under the impression that that was _precisely_ the point - wasn't that what your father's letter - Potter's letter - was all about: legitimising your inheritance? Killing the man who had brought dishonour on the Potter name, and contaminated the bloodline? Or did you make it all up? Was it the delusional fantasy of a deranged mind? You're a sad case, Potter!"

The ants were really marching now, lining up in phalanxes, in battle-formation. Harry was trying to analyse Malfoy's plan of attack.

"Is that why he is supposed to have poisoned my Aunt and everybody? Because..." He was slowly piecing together a theory, however absurd. "...because they're the last obstacle between me and my inheritance from James Potter? Because they might disinherit me once they learned that Snape was my real father? But that's crazy! He doesn't need James' money! I don't need it. He doesn't care whether I get it or not!

"As far as motives go, that's just stupid. It's ridiculously flimsy. It'll never hold up in court."

Malfoy had regained some of his self-possession.

"Oh do come on, Potter, surely you can do better than that? There's more at stake than money! Call yourself a wizard? It's all in the _name_, in the _blood_... I thought even you would appreciate that. Now, Snape would understand... Means, opportunity, motive - the Ministry's been gagging for _any_ excuse to arrest him. It hardly needs to be watertight. They'll find a way to make the charges stick and then - hey presto! - it's a one-way ticket to Azkaban!"

Harry was afraid Draco might be right. Voldemort's supporters had enough contacts in the Ministry to sway any verdict. Even in prison Lucius was still a force to be reckoned with.

"Well, it'll be quite a Death Eater party, then, won't it," Harry said harshly. "Or will it be a Malfoy family reunion when you get sent down for Conspiracy? Draco, do you think that's going to make your Dad proud? Do you think that's what he wants? Really? If you want to earn his approval, you're going about it the wrong way. He doesn't need you to fight his battles. If your Dad's in prison, it's because he was careless enough to get caught, not because of Snape. Anyway, what's Snape ever done to you? - apart from treat you like a human being, which is a hell of a lot more than you deserve. Think about it."

That was low, but Harry wasn't feeling particularly gentlemanly. He wasn't sure what he was hoping to achieve by undermining Draco's misplaced loyalty - maybe to find a fragment of decency beneath the tarnished surface of the Pureblood code of family honour.

The Slytherin shrugged, but it looked as though Harry's remarks had made an impression. For a second or two Harry thought Malfoy might be about to walk off and sacrifice the broom after all.

"I still don't understand how you got Snape to go to Privet Drive. That's about the last place he'd want to be." Harry got back on track.

Draco's smug smile returned.

"Not if he thought you were there, and that you were about to be killed by the Dark Lord..."

"But I wasn't. Why would he think that I was? And anyway, he wouldn't fall for the same story twice. He's not that gullible." Harry protested, but the familiar clots of guilt and apprehension were curdling in his stomach.

"Don't you be so sure. Our professor is developing a bit of a blind spot where you're concerned, Potter. Very touching! All I had to do was tell him I'd seen you sneaking out of the castle and you told me you were going to the Dursleys' to save the world..." Draco smirked in triumph.

"But he'd check. He wouldn't go rushing off on your say so. Not after last time. Not without checking first. He's not stupid." Flattering as the thought was, Harry knew that Snape would never have been so impetuous.

"Absolutely, Potter. Got it in one. And he did check. Legged it to Gryffindor, prontissimo. Gave the Fat Lady the third degree...But, you see, you weren't there. You were wandering about the third floor corridors, hob-knobbing with that ghostly headless halfwit. Touché!"

Malfoy's story was beginning to sound horribly plausible.

"He'd still have known that you were lying, though. He can always tell." Harry was scratching for a defence now, but it seemed as though Draco had all angles covered.

"Tricky that. The neat thing was, Potter, I didn't have to _lie_. It cost me a detention and fifty points from Slytherin for being caught out after dark, but that's a small price to pay for revenge. What I actually said was that I'd seen you leaving your dorm - which I did - and that I had _promised_ the Dark Lord to persuade you to Apparate to Privet Drive because the Death Eaters were about to attack your family... And that was all true. I did promise. And I'd already stolen the poisons and passed them on to Clarkson to plant as evidence..."

"But you didn't say anything to _me_. You knew I wouldn't be there."

The implication embarrassed both boys into silence. Harry, wondering if he ought to feel grateful, stared at the Slytherin who stood before him flustered and defiant, shivering in his thin Quidditch gear. Then Malfoy made a grab for his broom, turned and retreated towards the Changing Room.

"We can all make mistakes, Potter," he called back, saving face.

**END OF CHAPTER. So, is Draco a good guy or a baddie? I know I could have developed the 'poisoning the Dursleys' story-line a lot further, but I didn't want to take it in that direction. (I just needed Snape out of the way for a while..._Shhh! Don't give away trade secrets. Ed. _)**

**Next chapter: FIRST CONTACT. What happens at the séance?**

15


	12. First Contact

**Author's note:**

**Anonymouse: I'm sorry if you feel that way; I'm afraid I disagree. But I'm not here to argue. This is just a story, and I feel I can depict the characters as I wish. There are plenty of Snapes out there: gay Snapes, sexy Snapes, greasy Snapes... This Snape just happens to be educated. Why do you have a problem with that? (If you want to debate this, please e-mail me. I don't want my reviews to become the forum for a slanging match.)**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III :REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 12:FIRST CONTACT**

Luna had gone to a lot of trouble. The telescopes had been moved to one side of the Tower and a round table, large enough to seat at least eight, stood in the centre of the room. Harry didn't think fifth years were sufficiently advanced in Transfiguration or Shrinking Spells for her to have managed to get the table there by herself - he wondered what pretext she had given and what poor sap had been bamboozled into helping her. Around the table were seven kitchen chairs.

At first glance the black cloth covering the table seemed to bear an abstract, circular geometric pattern, embroidered in silvery thread. On closer inspection, Harry saw that it was actually a delicate spider's web design, the glistening spokes spreading across the table like a gossamer wheel, over a maze of fairy stitching, the winding strands ending in serpents' heads which snaked round the hem in a continuous coil.

Candles were positioned on the stone window ledges, grouped in colours: yellow, white, lavender and green. The scented, smudgy wisps meandered up to the ceiling to mingle with the incense smoke. A heady aromatic cocktail - myrrh, mint, cloves, sage and sweet vanilla - filled the air.

Luna was there when Harry arrived.

"Oh heck - were we meant to dress up?" he asked, daunted already.

She was wearing an extraordinary outfit. Over the ghastly, scarlet, Lapp tunic, she had on a long, dark blue cloak and numerous dangling necklaces - strings of assorted beads, polished stones, threaded teeth, and carved shapes in wood or horn or bone, which sparkled in the flashes of the pumpkin ear-rings. These were just visible under the furry flaps of a peculiar turban-style head-dress, made of plaited black lambs' tails and white cat-skins, with pointed lynx-like ears and a racoon-coloured tail hanging down, Davy Crocket fashion, at the back.

"You cannot be serious..." Harry faltered.

"Like it?" she smiled. "It's really my costume for the ball, but I thought it would be fun to wear it now. Can you guess who I am? No? I'm Freya, the Norse goddess. This is the ritual costume of a Scandinavian _seidhonka_ - that's like a kind of medicine woman. I have to sit on a cushion stuffed with chicken feathers - look!"

She held up a fat, lumpy, round cushion.

"Crikey, Luna - did you pluck _all_ of Hagrid's hens?"

Ignoring him, she gave a twirl, swooshing the cloak about her dramatically. Then she began to pace slowly round the table, murmuring to herself and sprinkling everything in sight with a white, granular powder which looked to Harry like salt.

"I've consecrated everything several times already," she said, "but I want to make sure... The others'll be along in a minute. They've been at Hogsmeade all day, and they're just getting changed for the party."

Harry had been forbidden to go to Hogsmeade as part of his punishment. He could have sneaked out through the secret passageway to _Honeydukes_, but he hadn't felt like it - it wouldn't have been much fun there with no one to talk to. He'd actually spent most of the day finishing off his Potions assignment - somehow it made him feel closer to his father.

There was a clatter on the stairs, and the others piled in, en masse. Ginny and Terry, lively and in a party mood, immediately pushed two of the chairs closer together and sat down holding hands already. Neville also sat down, looking around him nervously, perplexed that he had agreed to be there at all. Ron headed straight for the window and leaned out, taking some extra deep breaths. He looked very pasty.

"He's been sulking in _The Three Broomsticks_ all day, swilling Butterbeers," whispered Luna to Harry. "He misses you. You're going to have to talk to him."

Hermione was wearing a long, silky green dress and had her hair pinned up in an elegant French twist. Hermione in a dress! She looked almost sophisticated and rather intimidating. Harry felt a little shy as she approached him. She hadn't spoken to him at all since the previous morning.

"Harry," she said stiffly, "I feel I should say that we are here in order to help you. Luna has explained to us that going through the process of enacting a séance may be therapeutic for you. She claims that this kind of ritual procedure can be beneficial in cases where someone has suffered a sudden bereavement. It may, apparently, bring some form of 'closure'. If attempting to contact Sirius is going to help you, then we are all willing to go through with it, because we are still your friends - even if you have treated us abominably and your behaviour has been, in many ways, unforgivable."

After this speech Hermione sat down abruptly, refusing to meet Harry's eye.

_Oh marvellous! I'm a Charity case now!_ he thought.

"Well, shall we start? Are we all ready?" Luna calmly took control as though she were handing out jam sandwiches at a toddlers' picnic. "The important thing to remember is that, once the séance begins, you must not break the circle."

"But what if I need to... you know?" Ron whined, with a pained expression.

"Shouldn't have drunk all that Butterbeer," retorted Hermione, primly.

"The way I feel right now, I may throw up all over the table," groaned Ron, looking green.

"All right - " Luna interceded. "Ron, we need someone to write down everything that happens - any words that are spelled out. You can be in charge of that, and then you won't need to be in the circle as such. OK, everybody?"

They sat round the table: Luna, higher than the rest, perched on her feather cushion; then Harry, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Terry. Ron's chair was pushed slightly back, his notepad placed in readiness between Neville and Ginny. The table gave a sudden lurch. Neville squeaked; Terry and Ginny collapsed around each others' necks, giggling. Hermione eyed them severely.

"If you two aren't going to take this seriously, you may as well go. Stop playing footsie."

"Now," Luna continued, unperturbed, "my role is that of the medium. That means I act as a channel for spirits to communicate with the living. Spirits operate at a higher vibrational level than we do, you see... I can also channel energy into kinetic activities - that means moving things, like the cup that spells out the words. Some spirits chuck stuff about all over the place."

"Can we get on with it?" asked Hermione, pointedly looking at her watch. She hadn't scoffed out loud, but Harry could tell that she wasn't impressed and had better things to do. _Who's she got a date with?_ he wondered. He remembered he hadn't told her about Snape's arrest. _That's another row to look forward to_, he thought with resignation.

In the centre of the table was a large, square board with a sheet of paper attached to it, with the letters of the alphabet drawn in heavy, black capitals, spaced at regular intervals around the outside. Luna fetched a rounded wine glass and placed it upside-down in the middle of the paper.

"What we're going to do is place the first two fingers of both hands on the bowl of the glass," she told them.

Ginny was disappointed.

"Aaw. I thought we'd be holding hands..."

"You've done quite enough of that already!" snapped Hermione.

She was quite tense about this, Harry realised, also noticing that his own heart seemed to be beating faster than normal.

"Shhh!"

"We're going to do some deep breathing, in and out, in...and... out... to calm us all down. That's it. Try to keep that rhythm going, slow and calm, in... and... out...

"Now, don't anyone push the glass. Rest your fingers on it; focus on the glass, but let it travel. Let it 'find' the board; let it settle on the letter it wants..."

Obediently, soothed by Luna's dreamy tones, they all, except Ron, put their fingers on the round bowl of the wine glass. At a sign from Luna, one by one the candles on the window sills flickered out until only three were left.

"Now," said Luna, and her voice sounded deep and smooth and strangely viscous, like a rich coffee liqueur, "I will address the spirits. Don't interrupt; don't scream or be silly; don't bang the table; don't push the glass and **don't** break the circle..."

_Lots of don'ts involved in this séance lark, thought Harry. Wonder if anything positive ever happens? Still, you've got to give it to Luna, she puts on a good performance. The atmosphere's really spooky. I could almost believe it's real._ Deep inside himself he wanted it to be real.

**"Is there a spirit present?" **Luna asked.

A tingle of excitement went through the group, transferring itself to the glass as their fingers tensed.

**"Is there a spirit present?"**

The glass began to move. Tentatively at first, then in little, uncoordinated jerks, it nudged itself towards the 'Y'.

"Write it down, Ron!" Hermione hissed.

"I think we can remember that by ourselves," he complained.

"Shhh."

"Everybody, think of the name of the person we want to contact. It'll help the spirit to get through. Focus on the name. Think about Stubby."

"_Sirius_!"

"Whatever. Think about Sirius.**Spirit. Tell us your name."**

The glass became agitated and skated round the board, stopping at no particular letter, until after several false alarms, it jabbed over and over again towards the 'N'.

"No names; no police," muttered Ron.

"Shhh. Shut up!"

Then the last three remaining candles blew out and they were left in darkness. It's just the wind, thought Harry, but his hands were clammy and he suddenly felt weak and flu-ey with anticipation. The glass began to shine with a pale phosphorescence, illuminating the letters on the board. Harry could hear a faint, tinkling noise, very far away. Perhaps it was music from the party down in the main Hall; it sounded like a tiny, tiny bell...

"OK, everybody..." Luna's voice, smooth and soothing, " breathe in unison; deep breaths; I want you to hold hands and then keep the circle unbroken; concentrate on Sirius; welcome the spirit; allow the presence to form...

**"Spirit, we make this a place of welcome for you. Make your presence felt. Show us your presence by moving the glass. Do you have a message for us?"**

Touched by no human hand, the glass began to travel across the paper...

"Initiate First Contact protocols," muttered Ron.

"Oh for Merlin's sake! Not **now**, Ron!" Harry caught the suppressed wail from Hermione as the pink bubblegum ballooned around Ron's head and his body went into a violent spasm of hiccoughs.

The glass was still moving.

"Write it down, Ron! We can't break the circle," shrieked Hermione. "There's been an 'I' and then a 'T' and a 'U', I think..."

Inside the bubble, through the rosy membrane, Ron's face had gone an even more alarming shade of green. He grabbed the pencil and desperately scribbled down the letters, trying to keep up, in between hiccoughs, as the glass sped round the board, diving at letters then circling the paper once more.

"That's definitely an 'S' and an 'A', a 'T' or maybe a 'V'... Ron! Write them down!"

Suddenly the glass stopped dead in the centre of the board. They all stared at it, transfixed. Then the knocking began. Two sharp, distinct knocks, not on the table but from somewhere in mid-air above the table, like explosions of other-worldly energy popping a bubble of time. Two, then a single knock, then four, one after the other. Then silence. Then for a second time, two, one, four...

Then the glass began to rock, backwards and forwards; backwards and forwards, rocking faster and faster until it tipped itself off the table and fell to the stone floor with a crash, shattering into a million shards of light, which twinkled in the blackness then winked out.

Ron flung himself away from the table and made a lunge for the window.

"I knew he'd be sick," said Ginny, with sisterly unconcern.

Harry sat absolutely still. He felt very cold. Just before the glass had smashed he'd caught a drift of flowers: Magnolia, possibly, or Jasmine or Lily of the Valley. Perhaps it was the incense.

"_Lumos_!" The candles relit, casting a wavering glow across their white, shocked faces.

In the dim light Hermione examined Ron's notes.

"These are rubbish, Ron. I can hardly read them. What's that supposed to be? A 'T' or an 'R' ? and that one - is it an 'O' an 'A' a 'U' or a 'V'?"

Ron was leaning against the wall clutching his stomach.

"I'd like to see you do any better - when you've got hiccoughs and a damn, great, pink, sticky bag over your head. Thanks a lot," he groaned.

"If you'd just kept your stupid moth shut, instead of blabbing on about 'First Contact'..." Hermione didn't want to admit to being in the wrong. "Anyway, let's work out what it says."

She took the pencil and began to copy out the letters in sequence:

**S I R/T U S A T/V A/U/V I/U S**

They pored over the paper.

"I thought the third letter was a 'T'," said Hermione in confusion, but I think it's got to be an 'R', and perhaps we missed one - that first word must be 'Sirius', wouldn't you say?"

They all nodded, enthralled.

"But the rest doesn't make sense at all. It doesn't even look like English."

"It might be Swedish," suggested Luna.

For a moment, Harry thought Hermione might be going to slap her. She shrivelled her with a look of utter contempt.

"For heaven's sake, Luna! Why on earth would Sirius be speaking Swedish? He's never even been there as far as I know."

"Yes, but I might have been channelling his energy and subconsciously translating it at the same time."

"Do you speak Swedish?" Hermione sounded dangerous.

"Not exactly."

"Then **shut up**." She studied the writing intently. "It might be Latin. Was he good at Latin?" she asked.

"Snape quotes stuff in Latin all the time. Perhaps they all do - did," Harry volunteered.

"It's still not obvious though. Ron must have got some of these letters wrong. If, just for argument's sake, the first word isn't 'Sirius' it could be 'Situ' – meaning 'place'. So what could the rest be? I know 'Atavus' means 'ancestor' - but he isn't our ancestor, or even related. Oh, bother, this isn't my speciality at all. I can't remember the vocab. I suppose it might say 'Avius', but I think that means 'lonely'. I don't want to think that Sirius is somewhere out there all by himself and alone..."

She sighed, blowing out her cheeks. It was not like Hermione to be stumped.

"Well," she said finally, "the best I can do is 'Situ satius' which means 'in a better place'. Funny sort of message, but it's quite a nice thought to end on. Come on, Ron, I'm going to find you some strong coffee."

Ginny and Terry wandered off too, in search of slow dancing; Neville had simply disappeared without a word. Luna and Harry were left alone in the Tower.

"Why did Neville bother to come at all?" Harry asked her, trying to avoid the notion that had seized him the minute he caught sight of Ron's jerky scribbles.

"Well, his grandmother's getting pretty old. He didn't say so, but I think he's afraid that when she, you know, 'goes', he'll be all on his own - and he was checking out his options..."

Luna moved round the room methodically collecting the candles and incense bowls, and packing them into a box.

"That wasn't Stubby Boardman, was it?" she asked, folding the tablecloth.

Harry shook his head.

"And you know what the letters spelled," she said. It was not a question.

He nodded, feeling drained, as though every emotion had been scoured from his body.

"It's French. It says, '_Si tu savais'_. That was my mother."

**END OF CHAPTER. Next Chapter: LUNA AND THE SWEDISH SHAMAN. Luna has another suggestion. Will Harry buy it?**

14


	13. Luna and the Swedish Shaman

**Author's note: Sorry if the last chapter was obscure. The letters do work, (the ones with slashes are either/or, and, as Hermione says, the 'I' of SIRIUS is missing), but , hey, you try finding a phrase that incorporates the word Sirius, but is actually a set of esoteric code words intelligible only to Harry... x _brain explodes_ x**

**The phrase 'Si tu savais' was significant in _Snape's Confession_. It merely means 'if only you knew...'. It's from a very sad poem by Robert Desnos, which I will quote right at the end of the story (for anyone who's interested). For me it encapsulates (my version of) the whole Snape/Lily relationship.**

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 13 : LUNA AND THE SWEDISH SHAMAN**

"You're sure you want to do it? Positively? Cross your heart and hope to die?" She brayed a loud, exaggerated laugh.

"Luna! That's not funny." Harry didn't think it was a joking matter. "I've got to do it. I have to find out what she was trying to tell me. I'm not doing another seance. If this is the only other way of making contact with Sirius and my mother, then I'll do it. I'll go to meet them."

They had finished packing away in the Tower Room. Harry had helped by using his _Shrinking Spell_ - the one he had practised so diligently when he was planning to miniaturise the Portkey - to reduce the table and chairs to the size of a cigarette packet and seven match boxes. They shoved these into the cardboard box along with the candles, and then Harry shrank the whole lot and put it all in his pocket. It was a shame to let all that studying go to waste. Luna was vastly impressed.

The Gryffindor Common Room was deserted - everyone was still at the Halloween Ball. The Fat Lady gave them a saucy wink as she let them through.

"Now then, dearies - no hanky-panky!" she warned, with a fruity chuckle.

Harry felt a bit bad about keeping Luna away from the party, especially when she had put such a lot of effort into her outfit, but she didn't seem to mind.

"This is more fun," she said. "Besides, they all think I'm barmy."

_And they could well be right!_

"Well, you're a little - _unorthodox_," he said, trying to be polite.

Luna waited by the fire while Harry sped up to his dormitory to fetch his mother's poetry book from his trunk. He was convinced he had the key to the mystery at his fingertips. Those 'knocks' had to mean something... But when he fumblingly turned to page 214, it was totally blank. It was one of those empty, extra pages at the back of the book. Bother! He tried all the Invisible Ink, Reveal Secrets and Hidden Code spells that he knew, but nothing appeared on the page. He quilled his name as he had done in Tom Riddle's diary, but here was no answering message. So he hastily 'disappeared' his writing in case it fouled-up the magic. He even tried the Marauders' Map code, 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good', - well, Lily had been married to one of them! - but it made no difference.

"Perhaps the message wasn't meant for you," Luna mused. "Would she have been expecting _you_ to have the book?"

That made Harry stop and think. His mother had given the book to Snape. Yet, if the message was for the professor, why hadn't she contacted him directly?

"Well, he's hardly the type to attend a séance, is he?" said Luna, sensibly for a change.

Harry wasn't sure what 'type' Snape was any more.

"Why don't you just go and ask him now - take him the book and see. He won't be going to the party, will he?" she asked in all innocence.

Harry had to explain about the arrest. Luna's reaction was hardly what he expected.

"Well, that's good and bad," she commented. "Bad for Professor Snape, of course, because it can't be very nice in detention. Ha! Professor Snape's been given a detention!!!" She broke into her donkey-bray laugh again. "But it's good for you..."

"How? Why?" Harry didn't follow. Nor did he like Luna laughing at his father.

"Harry, how much do you know about the _World Navel_?"

X X X

An hour or so later, Harry still wasn't much the wiser, except that he was now _convinced _that Luna was completely bonkers.

"It's an idea that crops up in loads of different cultures: that there's a symbolic centre of the world. Some people call it the '_Axis Mundi'_. The old Norse people had a name for it too - _Yggdrasil_. You know how ancient civilisations used to see things in physical terms? They weren't too hot on abstracts, so everything became a sacred object? Well, they visualised _Yggdrasil_ as a kind of giant tree," Luna explained. "They believed it was a link between three worlds: the branches stretched up into heaven, the trunk was here on earth and its roots went down into the underworld. It seems a bit strange, but modern day Lapps still present offerings to their tent poles - they kind of symbolise the tree."

Harry had been wondering when the damn Lapps would make an appearance.

"Is that before or after they eat the snow?" he asked scathingly.

"Remember the drum I showed you? That's made of one of the sacred branches. It has spiritual properties." She ignored him.

"Can't be much of the tree left, then, if its timber is supporting the entire Scandinavian tourist souvenir industry," said Harry, intentionally snide, only to realise that Luna was giving **him** a pitying smile.

"It's branches are eternally self-renewing," she said, her faith unshaken. "Now then. The legend of Father Christmas..."

_Hermione had warned him. What had she said? Luna is a crackpot; Luna is batty; Luna's a whacko. And had he listened? No. He should have known Hermione was right. Hermione was always right._

"Luna, did somebody _brainwash_ you in Lapland? Does it ever occur to you that you are a bit one-track minded?"

"Yes, it's all frightfully interesting, isn't it? Now, as I was saying, the legend incorporates several Siberian pre-Christian beliefs. You'll have to read my Dad's article when it comes out. _Quibbler_ Christmas issue, did I tell you that? I could ask him to send you a copy.

"The magic flight of Santa recalls the out-of-body experience of the spirit. They have these fantastic hallucinogenic red and white mushrooms, and when you eat them you get this amazing out-of-body experience. Or so I've heard... Wouldn't it be nice to try? That's where we get the idea of Santa being able to fly."

"Do the reindeer eat the mushrooms too? Why don't they wear read and white robes?" Harry teased. Luna for once seemed deflated.

"Harry, you're not taking this seriously. If you're not interested, it makes no difference to me whether you talk to your dog-man or not."

"I'm listening!" he protested.

"It all links up with the idea of the ecstatic, trance-like state in which a Shaman would undertake his spiritual quest to the underworld! Ta-da!!"

She spread her arms in a gesture of QED triumph, but, seeing that Harry was still blundering about in the snow with the reindeer, she continued:

"Duh! Harry... ! In Norse mythology - well, you get it all over the world, same thing really, in lots of ancient cultures - American Indians, Aztecs, African tribes - they believed that these Shaman guys had special powers. They thought they could separate their souls from their bodies and journey to meet the spirits in the afterlife.

"_Yggdrasil_ was like a ladder or a lift or a corridor that went both ways, up and down, and the Shamans would get onto it through a portal and travel along it. Of course, it helps a lot if you're in a psychotropic trance..."

"Yes, it would," Harry agreed.

"You see? It all fits! And, naturally, the Christmas Tree is our modern symbolic version of _Yggdrasil_..."

"That's the big tree, right?" Harry was still several mental leaps behind Luna.

"Are you listening, or not? It's an Ash tree. Its roots are guarded by a Giant Snake - it's called something like... wait, I'll remember in a sec... It's called _Nidhögg_ - great name, isn't it? Just think, Harry, you could even talk to it - the World Serpent!"

She was almost ecstatic already, with not a mushroom in sight.

"Luna - are you making all this up? And, if you don't mind my asking, what the hell has it got to do with contacting Sirius?"

It was too much to expect a straight answer.

"Snape's house elf, Twig..."

"_Quig_. What about him?"

"Quig, then. He's a bit of a mushroom whiz..."

Oh no! Harry didn't like the way this was going.

"Luna, he doesn't grow psychedelic mushrooms!"

"I bet you he does. Didn't you say he was always trying to poison you, and Snape made you brew an antidote? What was all that about? Probably too high to tell the difference between a Field Mushroom and a Death Cap. And he's Australian! What do you think the Aboriginal elves do on the top of Ularu - drink kangaroo milk? Anyway, he's a Snape house elf: you're a Snape - he's got to do what you tell him."

Harry had never thought of Quig in those terms. Luna went on:

"It's excellent that Snape's away for a bit. You can Floo to his cottage from his office without anybody catching you, and sweet-sign Quig into giving you some mushrooms - _Fly Agaric_ is what we need, but you could ask him for _Psilocybin _too; and while you're about it, see if he's got any _Henbane_ or _Jimson weed_..."

"You've got this all worked out, haven't you?" Harry said slowly.

If the complexity of the plan perturbed him, Luna's earnest enthusiasm left him terrified. She had seriously thought this through; it was all so premeditated.

"When's Professor Snape due back? When will they have to release him? Assuming they don't charge him, of course. No, they wouldn't do that. Monday night? Doesn't leave us much time. Tonight would have been the best, with it being Halloween - the threshold to the Underworld is pretty much wide open – but tomorrow will do. Yes, you'll have to do it tomorrow."

"Just _supposing_ I get these fungi? What would happen next? _Hypothetically_?" Harry asked cautiously.

Luna beamed at him.

"Well, first you'd have to Floo to the Portal..."

"The Portal? Where's that? Can't I do it from here?"

"If you'd arranged to meet somebody at a Quidditch tournament where there were thousands of people, you'd find them in the stadium a lot quicker if you both used the same entrance, wouldn't you?" she explained patiently. "So, if you want to meet this guy, it makes sense to go to the Underworld the same way he did..."

"Are you talking about the stone Archway...?" Harry had only bad images of that place. "That's where Sirius died. I don't want to go back there. Every time I think of him going through that arch I feel awful. I have nightmares about it. It's as if a part of me went with him, died with him..."

Luna met his gaze and held it.

"That's the reason it _has_ to be at that place, Harry. You lost something there last summer, and you've not been the same since. You have to go back. It's the only way you're ever going to get over Sirius' death, to get beyond it, and find yourself again."

Harry clasped his hands and stared into the flames. For once he wanted to remember that day in the Department of Mysteries - the day he had spent months trying to forget. He could see the Archway on the crumbling dais, and the tattered, fluttering black curtain. He could hear the whispering voices calling... He had felt it then - they had been asking him to go through the Arch. All this time he had thought it had been Sirius, daring to join him on the ultimate adventure; now, he wasn't so sure. Perhaps it was someone else...

"OK," he said, "I'll do it."

"There shouldn't be a problem about getting there," Luna said, relieved, getting back to practicalities. "People are Floo-ing in and out of the Ministry all the time. With your Invisibility Cloak you'll be fine. So, you eat the stuff, go into your Shamanistic trance, your soul leaves your body and drops in for a chat with Stubby... And afterwards, you Floo back here, and Bob's your Uncle!

She made it sound so easy!

**END OF CHAPTER. Next (penultimate) chapter: THE FIREWHISKY TALKING. It's finally all too much for poor Snape...**

10


	14. The Firewhisky Talking

**Reviews: Exactly! How mad _is_ Luna? Definitely not as daft as some people think, but not quite normal... How do we _know_ who we can trust ? **

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 14: THE FIREWHISKY TALKING**

Professor Snape confronted the class, arms folded across his chest, his cloak hanging in sepulchral folds, looking for all the world as though he had just stepped out of his tomb. Ravenclaw Year Five sat, straight-backed and attentive, awaiting instruction.

"I give you due warning," Snape said smoothly, "that today I am in _no mood_ for ignorance, incompetence or indifference. If any of you is incapable of participating in this lesson without manifesting these attributes, then I suggest you leave forthwith. No one? Very well. I shall, therefore, expect your undivided attention and a batch of impeccable potions at the end of the class."

The combined brainpower of Ravenclaw did not consider this an unrealistic set of requirements.

Snape could have done with taking his own advice. His concentration was patently not focussed on the group of eager fifth years. His carbon-tipped stare, which could drill fear into a student like a masonry-bit into Balsa, was aimed inwards, striking only pockets of emptiness. For all he knew, Harry could be dead.

He became aware that the class was still waiting. He was a professional. He delivered the subject quickly, authoritatively, but his heart was not in it.

"Last week you performed an analysis of basic, generic antidotes and their effectiveness against common, everyday afflictions: wasp and bee stings, Doxy bites, Lobalung poison, Billywig stings and so forth.

"Today we shall consider antidotes targeted at specific toxins, with particular reference to how their application, under different conditions, affects the properties of the individual poison. For example, the venom of the African Runespoor is, in its pure state, haemotoxic, neurotoxic and cytotoxic. Minor formulaic adjustment to the antidote, however..."

The listeners were rapt; the note-takers busily scribbling down his every word for later perusal. He knew that the example he had chosen was really too advanced for fifth year level - usually he stuck to a straight evaluation of Streeler slime and its potential, in dilute form, as a decongestant. So why had he embarked on the vastly complicated analysis of Runespoor venom - was it purely because he had a fresh sample available? Or was it yet another masochistic torture: reliving that Saturday morning in the lab, with Harry chatting happily to Szahuna?

And now Harry was missing. Snape had returned to Hogwarts the previous morning after his release from detention, only to find that Harry had disappeared. There had been no sightings for three days, nothing to indicate where he had gone, whether voluntarily or against his will, whether he was even alive or dead. The Floo-trace, initiated by Shacklebolt, had tracked him to the Ministry of Magic, but after that the trail went cold. It was incredible that no one at the Ministry had seen him. He could be anywhere, with anyone...

"Sir?"

The class was waiting again. Snape sighed.

"The three variations as detailed on the board..." Snape resumed. With a flick of his wand the information appeared, though, he had to admit, the writing was less disciplined than his usual precise script. "...indicate how the correct application of antidotal agents convert the toxin for use as a painkiller, an anti-spasmodic and ... yes? What is it Feingeld?"

An earnest, squinting, dark-haired girl had put up her hand.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't read what it says on line six. I've forgotten my glasses."

It wasn't her fault. She was just the ill-timed catalyst in the reaction which transformed Snape's emotions that day from unstable to explosive. He bore down on the unfortunate girl.

"Miss Feingeld - if you cannot come prepared to participate fully in my lessons, then you need not come at all. Leave at once," he said, coldly.

"But, Sir!" In all her years as a goody-two-shoes, she had never been treated so unfairly.

"Are you remonstrating with me, Miss Feingeld? I strongly advise against it. Now, LEAVE!"

She scuttled to the door like a frightened Fire-Crab.

Snape challenged the room with a glare.

"Does anyone else find my writing _illegible_?"

Woe betide them if they did. He saw a field of bowed heads...

"Very well. The instructions for today's potion are also on the board. Would any of you like me to _read them out loud_? No? Well then, you may commence. Get on with it."

He knew his anger was unjustified, but the menacing note and mordancy crept into his voice unbidden. The Ravenclaws began to measure out the ingredients, keeping a wary eye on the professor - it was not often that they were on the receiving end of his trenchant tongue - that pleasure was generally reserved for Gryffindor.

Then, from the centre of the room, came the unmistakable 'tink' of cracking glass as hot liquid met cold flask, and an equally audible, "Oh, hell!".

Snape pivoted and zoned-in on the offender.

"Carelessness **and** profanity, Boothroyd? Both unacceptable. Get out!"

"I'm sorry, Sir."

"I said, 'Get out'. **NOW**!"

Another scurrying departure.

Snape stalked to the walk-in supply cupboard and shut the door behind him. He leaned against it, breathing deeply. What did he think he was doing? Honestly, he didn't care any more. Teaching antidotes to acne-ed adolescents was just too trivial, too piffling, too contemptible... He could not bear being in the classroom with all those studious, _safe_ children.

Firewhisky could, arguably, be classified as a Potions ingredient. There was a bottle on the shelf. Snape gave it a calculating look. He was assessing his ability to weather the storm. In a bid to stay afloat, he threw a few of his heavier principles overboard, unscrewed the bottle-top and took several hefty swigs. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he carefully replaced the bottle, collected the anti-venom he had come for, squared his shoulders, took another deep breath and rejoined the class...

"Yawning, Pritchard? Shall I infer that you are finding this lesson insufficiently stimulating? A trifle tedious? Sporific? **Am I boring you, boy**? **GO**!!"

Snape circled the classroom like an Orca picking off seal cubs, tossing them into the air for sport.

"Did you wash your hands after sneezing, Shapiro? These antidotes would be required for medicinal purposes; they will not be enhanced by viral contamination. Poor Potion hygiene! **Leave the class**!

"McKinsey! It says 'three pinches of dried Murtlap'. Inexcusable inattention and incompetence! Be off with you. Shoo! **Go away**!

"You did what? You spilled it? Jarvis, **OUT**! Carmichael - just leave it and go. **NOW**!

"What's that, Parry? I heard that! Insubordination! Leave! Go! Be gone! Quit! **Get the out of here**!"

Snape was jettisoning students and standards like so much unwanted ballast.

Feeling suddenly light-headed, he sat down heavily at his desk and dropped his head into his hands. The four remaining fifth years watched him doubtfully, apprehensive about approaching a firework after the touch paper has gone out. Snape felt their eyes dissecting him.

"Class dismissed," he said weakly.

Last to leave, as always, Luna paused by the front desk.

"Did you know you have rips at the 2nd and 3rd auric level, Sir? That is indicative of stress, Sir. And your Crown Chakra is completely blocked, Sir. It's hardly surprising you've got a headache. Have you ever considered Reiki?"

"Lovegood, I will not tolerate impertinence and over-familiarity from my students!" He would have shouted, but he didn't have the energy. "For Merlin's sake, just leave me alone!"

"Right-oh, Sir." Luna was not remotely abashed. She was half-way through the dungeon door when Professor Lupin pushed past her, hurrying to find the Potions master.

"Where is he? Has he gone mad?" he cried wildly.

"No, he's just very unhappy," said Luna.

"Snape! What the hell is going on?" Lupin stormed to the desk and accosted his colleague. "There's a corridor full of fifth years in tears, saying that you've ruined their RIBs! They're lodging a complaint with Flitwick now."

Snape looked up with a hang-dog expression.

"Their '_Record of Irreproachable Behaviour'_ scores are of the utmost irrelevance to me," he said flatly.

"They also said you were drunk!" Lupin accused.

"Not yet, I'm not." Snape laughed. "_Bonum vinum laetificat cor hominis_!" (1)

"Severus, what's got into you? Pull yourself together, man!"

Noticing that Luna had followed him back into the classroom and was regarding Snape with curiosity, he told her,

"It's alright, Luna, you can go now. I'll look after Professor Snape."

"Anyone would think he was dead," she murmured, stopping by the door to pick up her shapeless bag from where she had dumped it.

"What did you say?" Both professors were staring at her.

"I said..." she was about to repeat herself.

"Yes, we _heard_ what you said. What did you _mean_?" insisted Lupin. Snape said nothing. He had gone very pale.

"Harry. He's not dead," she said, and sauntered out of the classroom.

Lupin expected Snape to leap up and rush after her, haul her back for interrogation, but he remained seated, staring blankly ahead, not trusting himself to get up. The werewolf gave a little cough.

"Ahem, I'll go and fetch her back then, shall I?" He trotted after her calling, "Luna! I say, Luna, could we have a word? Could you pop back into class for a minute, please?"

She stood in front of Snape, absently twisting her leather bracelet, observing the Professor, seeing how the fine yellow and orange shafts of mental and emotional energy leaked through the greenish astral auric layer, draining his psyche. Crystal Healing might work too, she thought. Maybe he'd go for that...

"Miss Lovegood, you will tell me what you know about my son," Snape ordered, lifting his tired eyes to meet hers, his desire for truth as powerful as any Veritaserum.

"He wanted to talk to Sirius Black," Luna replied, keeping the answer simple. "We held a séance, but Black didn't materialise. So Harry went through the Archway to meet him."

Remus' eyes widened; he put his hand gently on her arm.

"Luna, think very carefully about what you are saying. Do you mean the Archway in the Arch Room in the Department of Mysteries. The place where Sirius Black died?"

She nodded as though that should have been obvious.

"Oh Merlin! Stupid boy! What does he think he's doing getting mixed up with Sciomancy? Why didn't he come and talk to me? Or to Severus? What was so important that he had to say it to old Padfoot, eh? Oh, Harry, Harry!

"Luna, how could you let this happen? You knew what Harry was planning to do and yet you didn't try to stop him? How could you be so irresponsible? Whose ridiculous idea was this? Didn't he pause for one moment to think how dangerous it was - how much trouble it would cause? Haven't we got enough to worry about, what with You-Know-Who's taunts getting more outlandish every day? What about his _father_, for goodness sake? Didn't Harry consider him at all - locked up on some absurd, trumped-up charge? Hasn't he got enough on his plate without Harry adding to it? What was so urgent that he had to go to such extremes? Well, Luna?"

Remus gave a good impression of wringing his hands, pacing the floor, fighting the instinct to throw back his head and howl, full moon or no.

Luna tried, in her own way, to be helpful.

"I think he needed to shout at Stubby."

"And what, in Merlin's name, is that supposed to mean? For once in your life, Luna, try and talk like a normal, rational human being!"

In his agitation, Remus found anything but a direct answer irritating.

Luna tried again:

"Harry had to tell Sirius Black that he was angry at him for leaving him alone. He needed 'closure'..."

"And you let him go through with it? Luna, what were you thinking?"

"Well, I thought that, if it worked, it would be really interesting..." she replied calmly - she might have been referring to a new recipe for Glogg.

All this time Snape had sat motionless. He appeared to be examining his fingernails. Eventually he spoke softly, his voice hollow.

"So. He's gone. Enfin, c'est fini." (2)

He rose and mechanically began to stack the parchment essays on his desk into neat piles, hiding behind the needless occupation - sheltering from the black hole of grief that was collapsing universes all around him as far as his mind could see.

"If you would both excuse me, I have work to do." He was coldly sober now. He gestured them towards the door. Remus was appalled.

"For Merlin's sake, man, don't be ridiculous! You can't go on as if nothing's happened. You need to go and lie down. Take a Potion. Try and get some sleep. You're in no fit state..."

"I don't need you fussing over me, werewolf," Snape snarled.

"But Harry's coming back!" Luna protested. "He's not dead, I told you. You're not listening." She felt that this highly significant detail was in danger of being overlooked.

"Not now, Luna. Now's not a good time." Lupin was ushering her out.

Snape had swung round to face her. His expression was suddenly vicious, like a Black Mamba, spitting venom and striking out at anyone who dared to try to get close to him.

"If your pitiful protestations are intended in some way to alleviate my... ..._loss_, then let me tell you that you are wasting your time. They do not. They cannot. I find them both insulting and offensive. Harry's disappearance is not a subject for levity or insincere platitudes.

"I take it that you encouraged him in this act of folly. It seems that you have ensnared and corrupted him with your insidious psycho-babble. While you were content to confine yourself to the Tarot and Rune reading, you managed to acquit yourself as a harmless eccentric. However, this latest Sciomantic dalliance is anything but harmless: it is dangerous in the extreme. Your actions are deplorable; the consequences... the consequences..."

He did not finish the sentence. "Get out!" he hissed. "Get out of my sight!"

Luna was dismissed for the third time that morning. Instead of heading for the exit, she started to rummage thoughtfully in her bag.

"Harry said..." she began.

"GET OUT!"

But Luna persisted.

"Sir, Harry said that if anything happened to him, I should give you this." She held out a small book with a dingy, taupe/grey cover and blue lettering. "I know he's OK, and he'd probably rather give it to you himself when he gets back, but seeing as you're so upset... You have to look at page 214. He says there's some kind of secret message on page 214. A message from his mother..."

An eerie chill had penetrated the dungeon. Snape took the book wordlessly. It might have been a phial containing, equally, the elixir of life or Nundu breath; he didn't know which. He sank down onto his chair and sat, holding the book before him in both hands, staring blindly at the cover.

"Will you both go now," he whispered. "Just go. Let me read this alone."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Bonum vinum laetificat cor hominis : A good wine cheers man's heart

2 Enfin, c'est fini : it's over at last

**END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: it's the last one... All your questions will be answered (or maybe not!). A MOTHER'S LOVE.**

12


	15. A Mother's Love

**Author's note: Two things I want to say: first, please take the 'hospital' section as _affectionate teasing_, not criticism. My son has spent a lot of time in hospital and the NHS staff have all been fantastic.**

**Second, I know that my portrayal of Lily here is controversial. If it offends anybody, I apologise.**

****

**So, Harry was planning to take Luna's hallucinogenic cocktail to give him an out-of-body experience to enable him to enter the underworld and meet Sirius... Everybody at Hogwarts (except Luna) thinks he is dead... **

****

**LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS**

**By Bellegeste**

**CHAPTER 15: A MOTHER'S LOVE**

The lights came on at six, waking him up when he had finally fallen into a deep sleep. He tried to ignore them, and creep back into that inviting cave of oblivion, but it was too late now; he was awake. He lay with his eyes still shut, listening to the routine start of another day on the ward.

First the shift-change as the night nurses clocked off to go home and slump in front of Breakfast TV, or go to Sainsbury's, retire to their coffins, or do whatever these nocturnal creatures do during the hours of daylight. He heard the humourless, efficient voice of the ward Sister as she stopped at the end of each bed, summarising the case notes, commenting on any special requirements, while the group of daytime staff trailed along behind her, already counting the minutes 'til their first coffee break.

"This is Johnny... this is Davy... this is our anonymous visitor..."

They had reached Harry's bed.

"Still no ID. No leads from police, social services or missing persons. Police are now working on the hypothesis that he may be an illegal immigrant. He's still our mystery boy. Condition: stable; I.V. drip and enteral feed same as yesterday; amnesia - no change. On hourly 'obs'."

They were wrong about the amnesia. When Harry had first woken up, it was true, he had had no idea who or where he was, or what he had been doing for the past fifteen or so years of his life. He was locked in an immediate present which consisted of a lot of tubes, bleeping monitors, unfamiliar, faraway voices, strange hands moving his limbs, rolling him over and tapping his reflexes.

That had been three days ago. It had taken him a couple of days to remember that his name was Harry and that he was a wizard - so what was he doing in a Muggle hospital? And then he had remembered that too. He hadn't told anyone. All in all he thought it was better to remain anonymous.

The routine here was very different from the restful calm of the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. Every hour someone would wake him up to stick a gun-shaped gadget into his ear and wait a few seconds for it to bleep; they lifted up his eyelids and shone a beam of light into his oddly dilated pupils; they transferred a tight, crocodile-clamp from one squashed forefinger to the other; they did things with tubes and syringes that Harry didn't want to know about.

Then they would all disappear. Just when Harry was beginning to doze off again, someone else would arrive to disturb him with more meaningless questions. It was like a cleverly calculated form of sleep-deprivation - all night he was kept awake by screaming babies (once one started, it set them all off), or asthmatic toddlers gasping at their puffers or wheezing into whirring nebulisers; every twenty minutes or so his own monitor would beep, and a nurse would come to scientifically flick one of the tubes and patiently press the re-set button. And, just as everything had finally settled down and gone quiet, it would be six a.m. and all the lights would come on.

Now it was the pharmacist. She was a tall, healthy, bouncy girl who looked as though she should have been playing basket-ball.

"Any meds? What are you written up for?" She took a shufti at his charts, commenting, "Docs not been up yet? I'll come back later."

Of course they hadn't been. Ward round didn't happen until at least eleven o'clock. Every day. Somebody should tell her.

Then there was the chunky lady in the peach-coloured apron, who, ignoring the 'nil by mouth' sign, brought Harry the menus for the following day and insisted that he tick several boxes. It was bizarre having to make a choice between Golden Topped Cod and Lamb Cobbler, when he wasn't allowed to eat either.

In the brief lull that followed, Harry would gratefully drift off again. Once the staff were sure he was sleeping, the tea-lady would sneak in with the breakfast (or lunch or dinner, depending on the time of day. Her modus operandi was always the same), and place it silently on the trolley table just out of reach at the end of the bed, thus ensuring that by the time Harry - or any of the patients; they hadn't singled him out for special attention - woke up, it was stone cold and inedible.

They woke him up again to make the bed.

"Dr Deacon is a stickler for hospital corners," said Tracey. She wore a round 'smiley' badge which said 'My name is Tracey. I am your Day Nurse'. She bundled him into a very low, leatherette visitors' chair at the side of the bed and told him not to trip over his drip stand. Then she began to fold the sheets crisply, gift-wrapping the bed like a white Christmas parcel.

The culmination of all this activity was the Consultant's ward round. As far as Harry could tell, it was a total anti-climax. Standing at the foot of his bed, the demi-god, Dr Deacon, perused Harry's notes again, flicking through the blank pages as though hoping to find a secret biography stapled to the back cover. Finally he passed sentence:

"Maintain routine observations."

_Oh great, _thought Harry_, another day of prodding and no sleep_. He was just starting to feel strong enough to think about escaping, but he was wired up to so many tubes and devices that he was afraid of what might happen if he went unplugged.

After that another form of torture was added to the prescription: television. The main screen at the end of the ward was switched on at noon and blared until bedtime. It was permanently tuned to the Shopping Channel. In addition, each bed had its own portable TV, and each child had theirs turned up to full volume to drown out the noise from the next bed. The girl in the bed opposite Harry possessed one video - '_Stuart Little'_ - which she watched over and over, about four times every afternoon. Harry wished Snowball would eat the mouse at the beginning and save everybody a lot of embarrassment. Slightly further away, but still very audible, was the roaring, revving, gear-crunching, crashing sounds of '_Grand Theft Auto'_ - some kid had brought in his own personal _Playstation_. As for the rest, they seemed to have the _Tweenies_ and _Teletubbies_ on a continuous loop.

Harry put his pillow over his head. Why was he the only teenager in a Muggle ward full of kiddies?

X X X

Harry could remember it all now - the ecstatic, unencumbered, out-of-body flight, and then later, reclaiming consciousness, and walking with the weight of his flesh again. He remembered it acutely, up until the point where he had collapsed on the pavement outside the Ministry of Magic. He had managed to get as far as the street; he had stepped out into the fresh air, his head was swirling and pounding, he had needed to breathe; he was hot, burning, he had to take off that stifling Invisibility Cloak...

He could remember Floo-ing to Snape Cottage and presenting Quig with his hallucinogenic shopping list. The old elf had read it, his wrinkles yawning to chasms of disapproval. Harry didn't have time to write an essay on 'the ethics of intoxication for the purposes of spiritual enlightenment', so he had merely scrawled on a scrap of paper, 'My friend is a Shaman.'

Quig shrugged, his expression clearly saying, 'Pull the other one, young Snape...' and stumped off towards the herb garden. He returned with two paper bags: one contained a large orangey-red mushroom, its curved cap dotted with white flecks; the other a sprig of leaves, similar to a potato plant. Tapping the first bag, the elf rolled his eyes and, pointing at his head, drew a series of rapidly decreasing circles in the air, then flung his hand up, skywards.

Harry grinned encouragingly and picked up the second bag. At that Quig shot both short arms out wide and shuffled round the room, flapping - a crude but effective mime. Harry signed 'Thank you'. The elf watched him as he prepared to Floo back to Hogwarts. At the last moment his wizened, old face creased into a conspiratorial smile and he saluted Harry with his characteristic double thumbs up. Harry felt he had gained a secret ally.

Luna had disappeared with the two bags into the 'Bin'. After only a few minutes she reappeared and gave Harry a conical, stoppered flask.

"I've mixed it with some Glogg to hide the taste. You'll need to drink it all."

Harry viewed the milky liquid with some trepidation.

"This stuff isn't going to kill me?"

"I can't guarantee that you'll feel brilliant afterwards, but it's not poisonous, no. Take this too."

She handed him a packet of what looked like crushed pot pourri.

"Do I have to eat it or smoke it?" Harry didn't fancy either idea, but Luna was hugely amused and honked with laughter. Harry made a mental note to avoid saying anything in future that she might find funny.

"Just keep it in your pocket. It's a protective herbal mixture to enhance psychic energy: Heliotrope, Lemongrass, Mugwort, Sandalwood and Dittany of Crete. It's to keep you safe, Harry. And so are these..."

In her hand were two long, brown leather bootlaces. Without saying anything more, she took Harry's left arm and carefully pushed the sleeve up to his elbow. Then, with one hand round his wrist and the other circling his forearm, she closed her eyes...

Harry felt the skin beneath her hands tingle and grow warm and then hot. A rush of heat travelled up his arm, through his shoulder, around his chest and settled like a Vindaloo in his solar plexus. Luna was wrapping one of the leather cords around his wrist. Handing the second one to Harry, she held out her own bared arm and indicated that he should do the same to her. He fiddled about tying it up. _Knowing my luck, that's probably a slip-knot that'll cut off her circulation, and by the time I get back she'll need to have her hand amputated..._

"If anything really bad happens to you, Harry, I'll know - this bracelet will come untied and fall off."

Harry was immediately worried.

"But I'm rubbish at knots, Luna. That won't last five minutes."

She gave one of her vague, inscrutable smiles.

"It's not the knot that's keeping it together, Harry."

It was almost time to go down to Snape's office. Luna had become thoughtful.

"Harry," she said bluntly, "you know they only did the séance because they care about you - Ron and Hermione and everyone."

"Yeah, I know. I know. I'll talk to them later."

"There's someone else you have to talk to."

"There's no way I'm apologising to bloody Malfoy, not after what he did!"

She was silent for a few moments, thinking, then she said,

"Harry, can I ask you something? If Professor Snape went through the Archway, how would you feel?"

The curry suddenly seemed to have worked its way into Harry's sinuses. He stared at Luna wretchedly. His face said it all.

"Then you should tell him," she had said gently.

X X X

Harry lay back, trying to block out the noise. Stuart Little was, yet again, single-handedly winning the Americas Cup. _Please, mouse, sail off into the sunset... join the Foreign Legion... go find some nice wainscoting to live in..._

A group of med. students had just woken him up. They had gone through the same, boring routine of questions as the Consultant - but with more tact. Did he remember his name? Where was he from? Had he recently been involved in an accident? Had he deliberately ingested the mushrooms? Had he known what was in the packet in his pocket? Had he been intending to consume the herbal mixture? Had he ever felt suicidal? Was he experiencing any side-effects? Had he ever had his stomach pumped before?

Taking pity on them, Harry had answered with 'Yeses' and 'Noes', and they had gone away delighted at having made a communicational breakthrough.

The Truth lay curled beside him on the covers, exposed, exhausted, poignant, but less painful than he had expected. It was more sad than shocking. He could accept it, live with it; learn from it. He had stroked it and it did not bite...

...As Luna had predicted, it had been remarkably easy to get into the Ministry of Magic. The queue of witches and wizards by the Fireplaces had hardly batted a broomstick when Harry's Floo had spluttered him into the Lobby. He was already invisible in his cloak, and the momentary disruption to the flames could have been a downdraught of wind in the chimney, or a vein of volatile sap in the logs...

Harry made his way to the lifts, waiting for another person to open the doors before he slipped inside, unseen. When he was certain no one was looking, he had pushed the button to go down.

Then he was walking along the deserted, windowless corridor with its rough stone walls and glimmering torches. He went past the plain black door, heading for the doorway and the stone steps leading down again into the Department of Mysteries. Everywhere was empty - where were the 'unspeakables' who worked in this part of the Ministry? He walked on, more worried about mistaking the way than about being discovered. Cautiously, he pushed open the door into the black, circular room - black walls, black ceiling. The blue candles flickered, reflecting off the black marble floor like the flashing light of a police van parked on wet tarmac.

There was no evidence that, months previously, this building had been a battlefield; no sign of the devastation that had resulted from Harry's last visit. Everything had been restored, replaced, renewed - the gouges in the walls, the scratches, the burn marks on the doors; the cracks and scars of explosive spells; the searing destruction of ricocheting curses...

Harry continued purposefully. He didn't want the clicking, ticking Room of Time, the Brain Room or the cavernous Room of Prophecies with its rows of new, but already dusty, shelves. He headed straight through towards the Arch Room, even though every step strained the elastic band of dread, already over-stretched, that was pulling him backwards and away.

Then he was there. He was once again on the set of his nightmares, preparing to act out another drama. It was just as in his worst dreams: that dimly lit, rectangular room, shaped like an amphitheatre with the stone benches on a steep rake up from the central pit. In the centre of that pit stood the ancient, cracked, monumental dais and, above it, the pointed, Gothic stonework of the Arch.

Harry's legs buckled under him, as though he had been kicked behind both knees, and he wobbled to the top step to sit down. In his pocket, the conical flask clutched in his fingers was beginning to feel warm.

Then the drumming began. It was a slow beat in his wrist, gradually increasing in speed and intensity until it became an insistent rhythm, throbbing from the twisted thongs of the leather bracelet, pulsating through his whole body. It was Luna, far away in Hogwarts, drumming up the trance; it was the sacred branch of _Yggdrasil_. It was time to drink the infusion.

It tasted vile. It could easily have been reindeer pee. Glogg could not mask the pagan acidity of the potion that would lead him to the very threshold of death and beyond.

Within his veins the _soma_ spores dispersed. They sprouted. Buttons of energy pushing their way up through dark consciousness; soft, pinky white caps with the force to split flagstones, spreading their gills and filling Harry with unnatural vigour. He was shifting, moving, tapping, riding the rhythmic pulse of the drum, invigorated... Luna had said he would feel this way, feel like dancing, like laughing, like whirling... what had she said? She'd said... She'd said...

He stumbled down the gyrating, spongy steps, down each plushly cushioned tier of undulating, pillowy benches towards the dais. He knew he had to reach the base of the dais and wrap himself tightly in his Invisibility Cloak before...

...his vision exploded into a rush of living arabesques, countless points of white fire, a chequerboard of filigree, jewelled cobwebs, Spirograph circles, squares, patterns; a dazzling, kaleidoscopic butterfly of light.

As the fiesta enraptured his earthly form, Harry slipped into a realm of smooth shadow. Before him the Archway beckoned, the curtains rippling open invitingly, blown by otherworldly breaths. He felt himself flying, lured by siren spirits, floating through the Arch...

...through a funnel, a curved cone of space, a tunnel... rushing downwards into darkness, weightless, timeless, disembodied, to a place he recognised...

"Sirius," he called, surprised to hear his voice sounding in the vacuum of eternity. "Sirius, I'm here. Where are you?"

There were whispers. They flitted round him like invisible insects' wings, brushing his skin; whispers, whispers...

"Sirius!" Harry cried out again.

The whispers seemed to echo the name, a sibilant sea of sound:

"Sirius, Sirius, Sirius-s-s... Sirius is gone... ...is gone. Sirius is gone."

"No!" Harry cried, "No, he's not gone. He was here - I was here - I was somewhere - he spoke to me..."

Harry felt a surge of panic. _Sirius couldn't be gone. Gone where? If Sirius were gone, what was he, Harry, doing here? How could he get back? Where was his mother? If she had a message, why didn't she contact him now? Would she know he was there?_

"Mother!" he shouted. He didn't even know what to call her - Mother? Lily?

Then a voice seemed to be separating itself from the whispering shoal, swimming through the vast emptiness towards him.

"Harry? _My_ Harry?"

"Mother!" he shouted again, more loudly. "Where are you? I can't see you!"

_What had Luna told him? You must summon the spirits; they cannot enter the half-world unbidden. The Shaman flight will take you part of the way; you must call them to meet you..._

"Mother!" he called, "Show yourself to me. Are you there? I want to see you."

He sensed, rather than saw, her presence. There was an iridescence in the air, a texture in space, a consciousness speaking in a soft voice several sizes too big, which kept slipping off at the shoulders...

"Harry? My child?"

Slowly the voice grew into itself, until Harry could hear her quite clearly.

"You **are** my child. Look at you, Harry! I see myself in you, my Harry, and I see... him. I tried to get a message to you: I couldn't cross the boundary, even on Halloween. I could not control the Ouija; it was too hard; I had not been summoned; you had called up another."

"Sirius? Yes, I wanted to talk to him. Is he here? Can you fetch him? I want to talk to both of you."

"The whispers are right. Sirius is gone."

"But he spoke to me..." Harry felt confused and cheated.

The gentle voice wrapped around him, cradling him in an echo of the mother's love he had never known.

"We stay here, Harry, while we have a link to life, a link that ties us to the past. When the link is broken, we have to move on. For some it is a wrong we must redress; for others it is a task we must complete before we can go forward. Sirius **was** here; he had been waiting; he had a destiny to fulfil. And now that link is broken; he has achieved that goal; he has gone on..."

"No! He spoke to me!" It was all Harry could say. It was not possible that his long quest should end in nothingness. He had wanted to say goodbye.

"That **was** his task, Harry," said Lily, gently. "It was written that he should guide you back to safety; you travelled here too soon; it was not your time. Once Sirius had sent you home, his work here was done."

"What if I hadn't gone to Snape Manor? Would Sirius still be here?"

"The paths of our destiny are mysterious, Harry. You did go there; you would have died; Sirius brought you back. And, once his link was broken, Sirius could not stay in limbo..."

Harry was wondering just how many spirits were lined-up in the after-life, waiting their turn to save him from an untimely death.

"And did **you** stay for me too?" he asked his mother. This wasn't at all how he had envisaged meeting her. He'd imagined more hugs, and a cosy chat in a celestial Madam Puddifoot's, swapping life and death stories over a cup of ethereal nectar. He had thought he would be able to **see** her.

"Is this your task? Talking to me now? Will **you** have to go too?" How could happiness be so fleeting, so insubstantial?

"I have stayed for you, my child, but my task is almost done. I know now you will be loved, Harry... I stay for another, but he has never summoned me, in all these years... You did not summon me, but I hoped I might reach across to you while the thresholds were open. Did you get my message? It was so difficult trying to manipulate that glass - I couldn't say all that I wanted. Did you give him my message?" Lily's voice brimmed with entreaty and hope.

"_You stayed for Snape_?" Harry was incredulous. He knew he was being slow, but his brain was having trouble processing all the implications.

"Yes, for Severus. I know the message was cryptic, but I didn't have the power to spell out my name too, let alone anything else. I thought you would understand."

"So there _was_ a message in the book?"

Harry sensed a caress, a stroking, smoothing his hair, a gentle touch drifting across his face. Can spirits sigh?

"It was all so long ago."

Lily sounded like the young woman she had been sixteen years before; Harry still imagined her that way: beautiful, vibrant, with her red hair falling loose about her shoulders and her bright green eyes fiery with intelligence.

"I wrote to him in that book, on one of the blank pages - isn't that terrible? We were taught _never_ to write in books! - and I highlighted some poems that seemed to say what I felt. Oh, I know it was a silly, romantic thing to do - perhaps I was a little crazy at the time. Everybody thought I was... And then I got shy at the last minute, and I put a Concealment Charm on my note - I'd said too much, been too honest, too forward. But I still sent him the book. I thought he would read the poems and realise that I wanted to talk to him... Did he read them?"

_Only about ten thousand times._

"Yes, but..."

"...but then I was killed. Before we had a chance to speak to each other. And in all this time he has never summoned me; I have never been able to tell him."

"Tell him?" Harry felt weak with anticipation; the tumblers to his locked life were dropping into place.

"Tell him how I felt. Oh, Harry, my darling child, I have watched you from afar; I have tried to be with you. From this side we can see through to your world, but it is so remote, so distant; we cannot get involved. It has been so hard, watching you cause each other so much pain..."

Lily's voice went very quiet, fading, growing softer, and Harry was suddenly terrified that she would disappear for ever, that she had delivered her message, that the link would be broken and that she would be lost to him for all time.

"Don't leave me!" he cried. "Don't go! You must tell me now. Tell me everything."

"I recognised him," she said. Harry didn't need to ask to what occasion she referred. There could be only one. "How could I not? Even with my eyes blindfolded. He had a kind of smell; I knew it from school - it was in his very skin, a sort of herbal, chemical, antiseptic smell...not unpleasant..."

Y_eah, I know it. No Firewhisky in those days, then?_

"...and I recognised his eyes. Those black, flashing eyes. That day they were filled with anger and torment. I thought he was going to kill me. Well, we'd all heard stories about the Death Eater raids... they didn't drop in for a chat and a cup of tea. You were lucky if you escaped with your life. I was frightened, Harry; really frightened. It's funny, you know, I'd imagined what I might do in a situation like that, and I'd always seen myself as being a real heroine - putting up a struggle, screaming, fighting. But when it came to it, do you know what I did? I froze. The feisty, independent Lily Evans froze like a mouse in an owl's talons. And, of course, James wasn't there to help me. It's lucky, in a way, that he wasn't - he would surely have been killed. But sometimes, when I think back, I wonder what might have happened if he had died that day... Oh, that's a dreadful thing to say. But, Harry, I've had so long to think about it; so many years to go through all the permutations in my mind... It never gets any easier.

"Harry, I can't talk about this - it's not the sort of thing a mother tells her child. I don't know what Severus has already told you. But you must know one thing: he didn't really hurt me; well, he could have hurt me a lot more than he did... I can't go into details here, child, it wouldn't be right. It's not the sort of thing that a son should hear ..."

Lily's voice clouded with memory. Harry felt a stab of guilt – he, after all, was urging her to recall that painful day. Snape too had been cagey about the details, but Harry knew enough to relive, vicariously, that vicious Death Eater attack. Inwardly he cringed at the images of brutality and degradation that would be forcing themselves upon her mind. Yet, when she next spoke it was not with abhorrence but sadly, in tones of resignation, almost regret.

"Do you know, I think he hardly realised who I was. He barely noticed me. It was as though he had a job to do, but his thoughts were elsewhere. I didn't understand it at the time. I was too scared to care. But days afterwards, when I read that his parents had died in that horrible accident, I understood the pain I had seen in his eyes..."

"But you didn't say anything for months - for nearly two whole years! He told me you sent him the book just days before you were killed. Why wait so long?" To Harry it still didn't make sense.

"Why do we do anything, Harry? Because, at the time, it seems the right thing to do. You may not understand this, Harry - how could you? - but when a woman is attacked like that, it has a huge impact on how she feels about herself, about everything. I hated him, I wanted him to die in hell, but for months I **hated** myself more; I felt degraded and worthless and unclean; I didn't think anyone would ever want me again; it was as though I was dirty, soiled. I felt like scum. I felt that in some absurd way it was my fault, even though I knew, logically, that I was the victim; I felt that the child I was carrying - you, Harry - was sent as a punishment. For weeks I just wanted to die too; I wished that he had killed me. There didn't seem to be any point in living. I was so depressed; my life was in ruins.

"And then you were born, Harry, and I loved you. I adored you. I couldn't help myself. It was as simple as that. From the moment I held you in my arms, I knew you were special. Suddenly it didn't matter to me where you had come from. But, of course, it mattered to other people. It mattered to James. He couldn't tolerate the idea that people might realise you were not his child. It would have been a disgrace; his precious family honour would have been sullied. Even when you were tiny, you looked so like your father... one look at you and everybody would have guessed the truth.

"James insisted on the _Patersimilis Charm_. It smoothed things over; it salvaged his pride; as long as he could maintain the charade in the eyes of the world. Keep on playing 'happy families'. He'd had long enough, himself, to get used to the idea that I was carrying another man's baby - I couldn't pretend you were his, Harry - things had been going wrong between us for some time...

"James didn't really care about me. Perhaps he thought he did, at first, but it didn't last. He didn't know me; he didn't see the real me: he saw what he thought he ought to see - but he only ever really _cared_ about himself. He cared about his image and reputation, and his appearance and popularity, and his money and his honour, and about having a good time and impressing his friends - but it was all superficial. James was a beautifully wrapped box with nothing inside it.

"Oh, he was good to me, kind enough, in his own way, but it was all a convenient, conventional façade - marriage by numbers - there was no true tenderness, no meeting of minds.

"Then, as the months passed, I found myself thinking more and more about Severus. I couldn't help it. I had you with me every day reminding me of him. Reminding me that _he_ was a part of you, so how could I hate him? I detested myself for it. I couldn't explain it, not to myself nor to anybody else. How could I possibly be thinking _that way _about a man who had shamed me? It was depraved and sickening; it wasn't natural; it was perverse. I should have loathed him. But I didn't, Harry. I didn't know how I felt, but I couldn't stop thinking about him. I thought about him all the time. I couldn't tell anyone; I didn't want to admit it, even to myself - it was _obscene_, insane. I felt I was betraying myself, and all the other women who have ever had to go through what I had endured. As though I was belittling our suffering.

"Perhaps I was demented, who knows? James told everybody I was emotionally disturbed - perhaps I was. James really did think I was mad - he couldn't believe that I was dissatisfied with him, with our life. He was so complacent! But I just wasn't happy with him. All I know was that I found myself longing for Severus - Oh, I'm embarrassing you! I'm sorry! I wouldn't normally say all this, but you did want to know the truth. I pretended it wasn't happening. For months I tried to convince myself that this was some peculiar 'coping strategy' that my brain had come up with - that if I stopped hating him, it would lessen the impact of the attack itself. Or something like that. But I knew it was a lie.

"I tried to turn my back on those feelings, to live a sham of a life with James, but in my heart I was yearning for Severus. There was something so dangerous, even thrilling about him! Everything with James was too '_nice_' - when I met him at school he was a bit of a wild child, but he was getting so preoccupied with his status in the world, becoming so unadventurous - I couldn't believe he was the Marauder I married. But I put up with it for years.

"I was too ashamed to confess that, now, when I thought about Severus _that day_, I found it exciting. I started to make excuses in my mind, trying to persuade myself that he hadn't really wanted to, you know, '_rape_' me.... I needed it to be _acceptable_ for me to want him. Maybe I was just a bored, unhappy, repressed witch craving attention. It didn't feel that way. I _know_ there was a connection. I felt he was my soul-mate, or he could have been; we should have been together. It might have worked. I began to _dream_ of making him love me. I **ached** for him. _And he never knew_.

"I wanted to speak to him, to see if there was any chance for us, or if I was deluding myself - was it just a sad, escapist fantasy? I probably would have left James, if Severus had given me any sign. I was prepared for any scandal, any censure. But in all those months he never visited the house, never came near me. He _never_ allows himself to believe that anyone cares for him: he even tried to rationalise the poems instead of listening to his heart. And then I died and it was too late. **_He never knew_**. So much wasted passion!"

Lily's gentle voice was misting, dispersing into wisps of ethereal tenderness.

"I still go to him, you know. I try to make him sense my presence, but he does not trust himself. I sit with him sometimes, in the evenings. I keep his Absinthe chilled..."

"And doesn't he realise that you're there?" Harry asked tremulously.

"No, he always thinks he is completely alone."

X X X

"Harry? Sweet Merlin! Child, what are you doing here?"

The voice itself was familiar, the affectionate tone less so. Harry reluctantly left his parents to their separate solitudes, and opened his eyes. It was disorientating to find himself staring into the concerned, caring, very surprised face of Madam Pomfrey.

"They've been searching for you high and low, boy - how did you get here?" she whispered.

"I could ask you the same question," he answered back.

Quickly she drew the bright, bunny-print curtains all around the bed, screening him from the view of the rest of the ward. He was embarrassed when she gathered him into a very un-Matronly hug, and dabbed a tear from the corner of one eye.

"Oh, Mr Potter, there are some people who are going to be very glad to see you. Everybody thinks you're dead, child! They're saying you went through the Whispering Archway..."

"It's a long story."

"Your friends have been so upset - Miss Granger, the Weasley children, all of Gryffindor... and Professor Snape has been worried sick, poor man!"

"Have the Ministry let him go?"

"In the light of new evidence, provided, as I understand, by young Mr Malfoy, they were obliged to drop all charges."

_Draco had confessed, to save Snape?_

"What about the other attacks? What about Voldemort? What about...?" began Harry, sitting up anxiously, needing to know.

"Shh, Harry." Madam Pomfrey interrupted him. "Everything that can be done is being done. Until You-Know-Who shows his hand, there is little that anyone can do. The Order - yes, I know about the Order - is taking every possible precaution. There's a lot of talking going on, planning, preparation for resistance. It is not up to you, child, to save the wizarding world single-handedly. When the time comes, you will play your part, as will we all. Your priorities now are to get well, and to sort out your own problems, starting with your friends and the people you love."

Madam Pomfrey had been seconded to a Muggle hospital as part of her participation in the WHIIMP programme. She had lasted the course much better than the cherubic, psychological creep, Mr Lardon. She had been asked by Dumbledore to find excuses to visit other Muggle hospitals, as part of her project perhaps, to see if she could discover any news about Harry. Already she had come across the entire Dursley family, recovering from the poisoning, in another hospital not far away. Harry congratulated himself on a very narrow escape...

"We need to get you home, Harry - get some _Strengthening Solution_ and _Pepper-Up Potion_ into you. Let's get rid of all these Muggle annoyances."

So saying, she expertly removed the drip and feed lines - Harry hardly felt a thing - covering the wounds with strips of sticking plaster.

"Get Professor Snape to dab a drop of _Better Balm_ on those when you get back," she advised. "I'm sure he has something of the sort in that 'pharmacopoeia' he calls a classroom. You can Floo straight to his room; I've managed to find one fireplace here that is connected to the Network. Now, how are we going to get you out of here? Be brazen, I suppose - pop you in a wheelchair, and make a run for it!"

"I can walk," Harry assured her, "and I've still got my Invisibility Cloak - I'll follow you."

X X X

Snape was sitting in the dark, the poetry book on his lap, open at page 214. A glass of Absinthe stood untouched by his side. Despite the glow from the embers of the fire, the room was icy cold. The loving words bled from the page, staining his existence in ever darker shades of regret and wasted opportunity. In all his life he had never felt so profoundly alone.

A tell-tale shower of preliminary green Floo-sparks, a warning that someone was coming, brought him angrily to his feet, wand at the ready, resenting the intrusion on his sadness.

Then there was a brief commotion in the flames, and from the fireplace a figure staggered, and stood swaying dizzily on the hearth.

"Harry? Bon Dieu, c'est toi?" (1)

Snape's strong arms stopped the boy from falling. They encircled him and pulled him to his chest. Harry's cheek was pressed against the rough fabric of his jacket: he could smell the herbal muskiness; he could feel the man's heart racing.

"I thought I'd lost you. Harry, I thought I'd lost you," Snape murmured, his grip, if anything, growing tighter, crushing the breath out of the boy, holding onto him as to life itself.

Then he let go.

"Come and sit down, Harry." He helped him to the couch. Harry noticed the open book.

"Sir, there's something I have to tell you."

Snape smiled sadly at his son.

"I know, Harry. I think I know, now."

**END OF STORY**

****

**(1) Bon Dieu, c'est toi? : God, is it you?**

**--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Extract from '_Si tu savais'_ by Robert Desnos (1900-1945)**

Loin de moi et semblable aux étoiles, à la mer, et à tous les accessoires de la mythologie poétique,

Loin de moi et cependant présente a ton insu,

Loin de moi et plus silencieuse encore parce que

je t'imagine sans cesse,

Loin de moi, mon joli mirage et mon rêve éternel,

tu ne peux pas savoir.

Si tu savais.

_('Far away from me, seeming like stars, like the sea, and all the trappings of poetic mythology; far away from me, and yet still here, without your realising it; far away from me, and more silent than ever, because you live constantly in my imagination; far away from me, my beautiful fantasy, my eternal dream - you cannot know... If you only knew...')_

**Thanks for reading, and a special thank-you to everyone who has taken the time to review. I hope you liked it.**

**Bellegeste**

**P.S.**

**Don't know if you're all sick of this scenario by now, but there is a Lost Perspective IV ... I'm still tweaking it, but basically it is a bit of a reprise, carrying on from where this leaves off, picking up a couple of threads and twisting them in a different direction, but from the perspectives of Hermione and Snape rather than Harry... (Well, mainly Snape, actually...). NO plot, all introspection...**

28


End file.
